In a letter issued today, four international medical and human rights organisations call on Turkish authorities to drop the baseless charges against the leadership of the Turkish Medical Association (TMA) at a time when doctors are urgently needed to tend to victims of the 6 February earthquake that have caused over 50,000 deaths in Türkiye […]

In response to the earthquake Monday in Türkiye and Syria, the following statement is attributable to Houssam al-Nahhas, MD, MPH, Middle East & North Africa researcher at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), who worked in the region until 2019 and now conducts research on human rights and public health in Syria:  “We express our profound […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) condemns a Turkish court’s sentencing today of Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a leader in Türkiye’s medical and human rights community, to two years, eight months and 15 days of imprisonment on baseless charges of “making terrorist propaganda.”   Dr. Fincancı was released pending the appeal. The conviction is the latest form […]

Tomorrow, renowned Turkish doctor and human rights defender Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı will undergo a second judicial hearing on baseless charges in Istanbul Heavy Penalty Court. Due process violations, lack of evidence, and ill-treatment of Dr. Korur Fincancı during her transfer suggest that her arrest is a gross miscarriage of justice. International medical and human […]

In response to today’s ruling by Turkish authorities to deny the petition for release of internationally renowned human rights defender Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, chairperson of the Turkish Medical Association and executive committee member of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, who has been unlawfully detained since October 26, 2022, the following quote is attributed […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Local and international experts will host a press conference in Istanbul on Thursday to demand that President Erdoğan and Turkish authorities immediately release Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a renowned human rights defender who has been arbitrarily detained since October. On Friday morning, Dr. Fincancı’s hearing will take place before the İstanbul 24th […]

English version here. Önde gelen dört uluslararası insan hakları ve sağlık STK’sı, Türk Tabipleri Birliği Başkanı ve Türkiye İnsan Hakları Vakfı Yönetım Kurulu üyesi Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı’nın 27 Ekim’de esaslara ve usullere dayanmayan tutuklanmasını kınadı.   Örgütler, Dr. Fincancı’nın derhal ve koşulsuz olarak serbest bırakılmasını ve Türk yetkililerinin ülkedeki insan hakları ve ifade özgürlüğüne yönelik baskılarını […]

Turkish version here. Four leading international human rights and medical NGOs condemn the arbitrary arrest on 27 October of Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, chairperson of the Turkish Medical Association and executive committee member of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.   The organizations demand Dr. Fincancı’s immediate, unconditional release and that Turkish authorities cease their crackdown […]

December 1, 2020 President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Mr. President, I am writing on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights to respectfully request the immediate release and immediate and unconditional dismissal of all charges against Dr. Şeyhmus Gökalp. Dr. Gökalp is a volunteer with the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey and a member of […]

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Cumhurbaşkanlığı Külliyesi 06560 Beştepe-Ankara, Via E-mail at: contact@tccb.gov.tr Mr. President, I am writing on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights to respectfully request the immediate and unconditional dismissal of all charges against Dr. Serdar Küni. Dr. Küni is a physician at the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey Şırnak Reference […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is deeply alarmed by reports of wide-ranging and severe human rights violations committed by Turkish forces in Syria, a devastating escalation in an eight-year conflict defined by the egregious corrosion of international human rights and humanitarian norms. According to reports from humanitarian organizations and news media, Turkish or Turkish-aligned forces […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes a Turkish court’s acquittal today of Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a prominent human rights defender, anti-torture advocate, and the president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, who in 2016 was arrested, briefly imprisoned, and charged with disseminating “terrorist propaganda” after taking part in a solidarity campaign with a newspaper critical […]

NEW YORK – Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) strongly condemned the sentencing today of the leaders of the Turkish Medical Association (TMA) and called for the court’s judgment to be overturned and the charges to be dismissed. “This gratuitous court decision is a new low in the attacks on doctors and the practice of health […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) denounces the sentencing today of Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a prominent human rights defender and the president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, to two years and six months in prison for signing a peace petition in 2016 organized by a group of Turkish academics. Fincancı, a longtime PHR […]

PHR condemns the sentencing in absentia of Dr. Gençay Gürsoy, founder and former president of the Turkish Medical Association (TMA), by the Istanbul 37th Penal Court in Turkey.  Dr. Gürsoy was sentenced to two years and three months in prison on the trumped-up charge of “disseminating propaganda for an armed terrorist organization.” The court decided […]

In January 2014, the Turkish Ministry of Health filed a lawsuit against the Turkish Medical Association (TMA), the Turkish affiliate of the World Medical Association and the Standing Committee of European Doctors, and a long-time partner of PHR. The lawsuit claimed that the TMA illegally “established healthcare units called infirmaries” in response to protests at […]

In 2015 and 2016, as violence between Kurdish fighters and Turkish security forces roiled southeast Turkey, curfews and roadblock prevented the sick and wounded from accessing health care. As PHR documented, Turkish security forces deliberately and unlawfully imposed a virtual state of emergency across the country’s southeast. In November 2016, Dr. Serdar Küni, a Cizre […]

Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a globally renowned forensic physician, is president of Türkiye’s largest human rights organization and has spent much of her career fighting torture and ill-treatment in Turkey and worldwide. A long-time partner of PHR, Dr. Fincancı, alongside anti-torture experts from around the world, collaborated with PHR in the creation of the Istanbul Protocol, […]

PHR has a long history of human rights advocacy in Türkiye, where successive governments have used violence and persecution to quash dissent and to repress the country’s minority Kurdish population. Our early work in Türkiye began in 1994, when PHR investigators documented the widespread and systematic use of torture and the complicity of physicians in […]

When the Turkish government unleashed the full fury of its repression following the July 2016 failed coup, thousands of teachers, journalists, lawyers, doctors, and members of civil society were fired from their jobs, jailed, arrested, or put on trial — including PHR’s fellow-activists Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, and Dr. Serdar Küni of the Human Rights Foundation of […]

Three judges sat on a raised platform in front of the courtroom. On the wall behind them were the words “Adalet Devletin Temelidir.” Justice is the foundation of the state. In that courtroom in Şirnak, a town in Turkey’s restive southeast, no justice would be done that day. On March 13, I traveled to Şirnak as […]

Dr. B.K. was performing her rounds at Cizre State Hospital when she heard the sound of gunshots. “The nurses from the first floor came rushing through the door saying that security forces were downstairs,” she said. “We could hear gunfire on the roof, as well as from the first floor. We moved all the patients […]

This report details the widespread grave human rights violations committed by Turkish security forces in the country’s southeast. Since July 2015, the Turkish authorities have waged a campaign against the population of southeastern Turkey, imposing a succession of 24-hour sieges, known as curfews, which have blocked access to health care – including emergency medical treatment […]

In 2017, PHR presented its annual award to Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a longtime partner of PHR’s and president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey. Two year ago, she was arrested on terror-related charges for taking part in a free speech campaign supporting a newspaper critical of the Turkish government. Throughout her career, Dr. […]

The first person we met with upon arriving in Istanbul last June was the father of Berkin Elvan – a 14-year-old boy who left his home to buy bread during the Gezi Park protests and was hit in the head by a tear gas canister fired by police. Berkin was in a coma until today […]