Under the constitutional system in place since 2018, the president is the chief national authority and holds sweeping executive powers. The president is directly elected for up to two five-year terms but is eligible to run for a third term in the event of early elections or constitutional changes. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who served as prime minister from 2003 until his first election as president in 2014, was allowed to run for a third presidential term in 2023 on the grounds that his second election in 2018 had been the first under the new constitutional system.

Erdoğan won the May 2023 presidential race in the second round with 52.18 percent of the vote, defeating Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the CHP. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) criticized the election, reporting that state-run media heavily favored the AKP in its coverage and that opposition forces were hampered by restrictions on their freedoms of assembly, association, and expression, among other problems.

The next presidential election was scheduled for 2028, though the CHP continued to call for early elections during 2025, accusing the AKP of political repression and economic mismanagement.

The unicameral Grand National Assembly has 600 seats. Lawmakers are elected to five-year terms by proportional representation. Parties need at least 7 percent of the national vote to join the parliament.

In the May 2023 elections, held concurrently with the presidential vote, the AKP joined the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and two smaller parties to form the People’s Alliance, which won 49.5 percent of the vote and 323 seats. The opposition Nation’s Alliance, led by the CHP and including the İyi Party (İP) and four smaller parties, won 35 percent of the vote and took 212 seats. The pro-Kurdish Green Left Party (YSP) won 10.6 percent of the vote and 65 seats. As with the presidential election, the OSCE’s monitoring assessment noted the impact of restrictions on basic freedoms, political interference in the electoral process, and a lack of transparency.

The judges of the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK), who oversee all voting procedures, are appointed by AKP-dominated judicial bodies and often defer to the AKP in their decisions. Ahead of the May 2023 general elections, the OSCE raised concerns about the independence of the YSK, and the council drew criticism for its approval of a third presidential term for Erdoğan.

An electoral law passed in 2022 lowered the parliamentary entry threshold from 10 percent to 7 percent and changed the way parliamentary seats are distributed among party alliances. The law also modified procedures for the selection of judges who oversee elections and control the vote-counting process in a way that increased the likelihood of pro-AKP bias.

Turkey formally maintains a multiparty system. Parties are required to organize chapters and hold congresses in at least half of Turkey’s provinces no later than six months before an election in order to participate. Political pluralism has been severely restricted in practice, with opposition leaders and officials facing a pattern of politically motivated prosecutions, violent attacks, and other forms of harassment that affect their parties’ ability to function.

The CHP came under especially acute pressure from the authorities during 2025. Hundreds of CHP politicians and party officials were detained over the course of the year, and the state actively interfered in the party’s internal governance. In September, a court ruling annulled a 2023 CHP provincial party congress and removed Özgur Çelik as the head of the party’s Istanbul branch, replacing the branch’s leadership with a team of trustees. The party responded by holding an emergency congress and reelecting Çelik as the branch’s chair. Also that month, the CHP held an emergency congress to reelect Özgür Özel as its national chair, as part of a bid to preempt a court challenge seeking to annul the party’s 2023 congress.

Other parties have also faced persecution. For years, prosecutors had investigated and jailed members of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for their alleged links to the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey as well as the United States and the European Union (EU). A potential ban on the HDP itself prompted the party to regroup under the YSP banner in order to compete in the 2023 elections. The YSP later rebranded itself as the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party. In February 2025, the authorities arrested dozens of people affiliated with the People’s Democratic Congress, a coalition of leftist and pro-Kurdish parties and civil society groups. Among those detained on terrorism charges were DEM leaders Semiha Şahin and Mehmet Saltoğlu.

President Erdoğan and the AKP assert partisan control over the YSK, the judiciary, the police, and the media. In recent years, they have aggressively used these institutional tools to weaken or co-opt political rivals, limiting the opposition’s ability to build voter support and gain power through elections.

Opposition parties have surmounted these formidable obstacles and won substantial election victories, particularly at the municipal level, but the central government has responded by obstructing, arresting, and removing opposition mayors from their posts across the country. In one common practice of the past several years, the government has used its control over appointed provincial governors to replace dozens of mayors with trustees. Most of those affected have been members of pro-Kurdish parties. In February 2025, for example, a trustee was appointed to govern Kars’s Kağizman municipality after its elected DEM mayor, Mehmet Alkan, received a prison sentence of more than six years for alleged terrorism offenses. Over the course of the year, however, authorities increasingly focused on prosecuting and removing CHP mayors. In late October, the party reported that 16 of its mayors were behind bars, and trustees had been appointed to oversee 13 CHP-led municipalities. The most prominent case was that of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was arrested in March, just days before he was formally chosen in a primary vote to represent the CHP in the next presidential election. Although he faced a variety of charges in overlapping proceedings, an indictment issued in November charged him with 142 corruption and other offenses, calling for a sentence of up to 2,352 years in prison. He remained in detention at year’s end. Meanwhile, a group of nine mayors from the CHP and other parties formally switched to the AKP in August, and the CHP mayor of Istanbul’s Bayrampaşa district said in September that he had been arrested because he rebuffed pressure to join the ruling party.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to the government’s broad crackdown on opposition party politicians and officeholders, including the politicized arrest and prosecution of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was expected to be President Erdoğan’s main challenger in the next election.

The AKP’s institutional dominance threatens to make the state an extension of the party that can be used to change political outcomes. The AKP’s use of state resources and public benefits programs to increase its votes around elections, as well as its use of public tenders to influence and control the private sector, are especially problematic. Moreover, violent attacks and threats of violence against opposition parties have contributed to the intimidation of politicians and voters during campaign periods and on election day.

Political rights are upheld unevenly among different demographic groups. Critics charge that the AKP favors the interests of Sunni Muslims. While members of Turkey’s non-Sunni Alevi community and non-Muslim citizens hold seats in the parliament, the government’s crackdown on the opposition parties in which they are concentrated has seriously harmed their political rights and electoral opportunities.

Politicians and parties associated with the Kurdish population, Turkey’s largest ethnic minority group, continue to experience regular harassment by the government, including hate speech, politically motivated prosecutions, and disinformation in progovernment media. Examples of anti-Kurdish bias in the political sphere were reported even after the government announced breakthroughs in its peace negotiations with the PKK in 2025. In August, for instance, a group of Kurdish women invited to testify before a parliamentary committee on the peace process were barred from speaking in Kurdish.

Women and LGBT+ people face de facto obstacles to political participation and remain underrepresented in politics and in leadership positions in government. Women held about 20 percent of the seats in the Grand National Assembly after the 2023 elections, a slight increase from the 2018 elections. A handful of LGBT+ candidates have run for office, but LGBT+ people remain politically marginalized, in part because the government uses public morality laws to restrict advocacy for LGBT+ rights. The 2023 elections featured successful campaigns by several far-right politicians who ran on explicitly homophobic platforms.

While some of the more than two million Syrian refugees in Turkey as of 2025 have obtained Turkish citizenship in recent years, most have no clear legal path to gain such status and thus no access to political rights. The protections of citizenship can also be removed. Prominent Syrian human rights defender Taha al-Ghazi was detained and deported to Syria in May 2025, about a year after authorities revoked his Turkish citizenship on national security grounds.

Erdoğan controls all executive functions, often rules by decree, and makes all major policy decisions. Since 2016, he has overhauled Turkey’s ministries and agencies, purging tens of thousands of civil servants and replacing them with political loyalists. He exerts effective control over the legislature through his leadership of the AKP; lawmakers’ capacity to provide policy contributions has greatly eroded under the new presidential system in effect since 2018. Erdoğan frequently intervenes against ministries and independent public bodies that defy his wishes. The central government’s control over state resources has deprived opposition-run municipalities of financial support.

Corruption remains a serious problem, including at the highest levels of government. Enforcement of anticorruption laws is inconsistent, and anticorruption agencies are ineffective or politicized, creating a culture of impunity. The judiciary and law enforcement bodies are themselves subject to corruption and political interference. Journalists who attempt to report independently on corruption cases face censorship and criminal charges.

The authorities’ investigations of alleged corruption in opposition-controlled municipalities such as Istanbul have been heavily politicized and selective in practice, with law enforcement bodies failing to apply the same level of scrutiny to earlier periods when the cities were led by AKP mayors.

Turkey’s political and legal environment has made democratic oversight of the government nearly impossible. Despite laws guaranteeing access to information, the government withholds information on the activities of state officials and institutions. Civil society leaders and journalists are routinely denied access to government officials, meetings, and events. Public officials are widely accused of publishing distorted data, including statistics on inflation and unemployment.

Most Turkish media networks are owned by businesses that depend on public tenders or have close ties to President Erdoğan. Mainstream media reflect government positions and often carry identical headlines. Although independent outlets exist, they face tremendous political pressure and are routinely targeted for prosecution. Media outlets are frequently censored, fined, or shut down, and journalists are detained regularly. According to the quarterly reports of the independent BİA Media Monitoring group, at least 30 journalists were assaulted and 58 were detained during 2025. Charges leveled against journalists included “insulting state institutions,” “terrorist propaganda,” and “disclosing confidential investigations.”

Journalists risk arrest and prosecution when covering politics, corruption, or protests. In March 2025, journalists who reported on or photographed the nationwide protests triggered by the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu faced arrests and police raids, in some cases at their homes.

Members of Turkey’s state broadcast regulator, the High Council for Broadcasting (RTÜK), are appointed by the AKP-controlled parliament. The RTÜK routinely fines independent networks that critique the government. Since 2020, the government has forced major social media companies to maintain offices in the country and comply with government demands to take down content. Companies that refuse to comply have received heavy fines and advertising bans.

A September 2025 report by the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) found that Turkey blocked access to more than 311,000 web addresses in 2024, the highest number since 2007. This included more than 5,700 news articles. Some 82 percent of the blocks were imposed by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority without a court order.

Sunni Islam is the majority religion in Turkey. While the constitution defines a secular state and guarantees freedom of religion, there are limitations on the rights of both recognized and unrecognized religious minority groups. The government recognizes only the Armenian Christian, Greek Orthodox, and Jewish minorities; it does not recognize their leadership structures as legal entities, leading to difficulties on matters such as property ownership. Other non-Muslim groups, such as Protestant Christians, struggle to establish and register places of worship.

Turkey’s Sunni mosques and schools are entitled to government funding through the state-controlled Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), which covers the salaries of imams as well as the mosques’ utility costs. Alevi institutions and those of other religious communities are not provided with such support. In 2024, Istanbul municipal authorities officially recognized Alevi places of worship, known as Cemevleri, granting them a status that was previously denied due to opposition from AKP representatives on the city council.

The national curriculum mandates compulsory religious education. Children of Christian and Jewish families are exempt if their religion is disclosed on their national identification cards. Unrecognized groups, including Alevis, cannot obtain exemptions from these classes.

Alevis and non-Muslims continue to be targeted with hate speech, property damage, and occasional violent assaults.

Since 2016, the government has dismissed thousands of academics and educators for their perceived sympathies with the political left, the PKK, or the movement of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, which was blamed for that year’s failed coup attempt. More than a thousand scholars have been investigated and hundreds prosecuted for declaring their support for peace between the government and the PKK. University students are routinely detained for holding peaceful demonstrations against government policies, and hundreds of students were among those arrested in connection with opposition protests in 2025.

The government and university administrations regularly intervene to suppress dissent on campus and to prevent academics from researching sensitive topics, encouraging self-censorship among scholars. Erdoğan obtained the power to appoint rectors at public and private universities through a 2016 presidential decree and has used it to influence academic institutions’ affairs. In July 2025, in response to a 2024 ruling by the Constitutional Court, the government secured passage of a law that reaffirmed the president’s sole authority to appoint university rectors, without any required input from the university community.

While citizens continue to voice their opinions in private, many exercise caution about what they say publicly. Ordinary people have faced criminal prosecution for incitement or insulting the president, as have public figures.

The government heavily monitors and censors the Turkish internet, contributing to self-censorship. The vaguely written disinformation law that took effect in 2022 significantly expanded the scope of potentially criminal activities on social media and introduced a three-year maximum prison sentence. Of the more than 311,000 web addresses that İFÖD found to have been blocked in 2024, tens of thousands were social media accounts or posts.

A number of prominent individuals were prosecuted for expressing their personal views in 2025, contributing to the intimidation of the broader population. In March, writer and academic Çiğdem Bayraktar Ör received a suspended sentence of more than a year in prison for her online criticism of the AKP government. Lawyer Burak Saldıroğlu was arrested in May for a social media post questioning whether the president was “in his right mind.” In September, YouTuber Boğaç Soydemir and rapper Enes Akgündüz were detained for allegedly inciting religious hatred or insulting Islam in remarks that were broadcast online.

Authorities routinely ban gatherings organized by government critics, while progovernment rallies are allowed and enjoy police protection. Police frequently use force to break up peaceful protests. In recent years, security forces have employed tear gas, pepper spray, and other violent tactics to disperse May Day protests, commemorations of the 2013 Gezi Park protests, LGBT+ pride parades, Women’s Day celebrations, marches against gender-based violence, protests against price hikes and soaring inflation, vigils for victims of a 1980 military coup, and other gatherings. Since 2022, authorities have cracked down on a variety of art and music festivals.

In 2025, police detained hundreds of protesters and used tear gas, water cannons, and plastic bullets to suppress countrywide demonstrations triggered by the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Imamoğlu and other opposition figures. Also during the year, officials again banned LGBT+ pride events and carried out blockades and arrests to disrupt gatherings by people who attempted to defy the restrictions.

The government frequently targets independent civil society groups and human rights defenders with regulatory pressure or judicial harassment. Since 2016, it has shut down more than 1,500 foundations and associations. Leaders of remaining nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) face intimidation, arrests, and prosecutions. A 2020 law subjects NGOs to yearly audits and gives the Interior Ministry the power to appoint trustees to the boards of NGOs facing criminal investigation. In 2021, the government froze the assets of 770 NGOs based on spurious accusations of terrorism financing.

Turkey’s politicized judiciary has convicted several prominent human rights activists, including the former head of Amnesty International Turkey, on bogus terrorism charges in an apparent effort to intimidate civil society actors and stifle human rights advocacy. In 2022, an Istanbul court convicted prominent philanthropist Osman Kavala and other celebrated civil society leaders of conspiring to overthrow the government. Kavala was sentenced to life in prison, while seven other defendants received 18-year sentences. In 2023, an appeals court overturned three defendants’ sentences but upheld Kavala’s. The convictions, following a prosecution that was widely seen as baseless, conspiracist, and politically motivated, drew sharp criticism from international and domestic rights groups. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly ordered Turkey to release Kavala.

Organizations that focus on the rights of LGBT+ people, women, and ethnic or religious minority groups are often targeted with civil or criminal litigation. In June and August 2025, authorities blocked access to the website and social media accounts of Kaos GL, an LGBT+ rights group. Prominent LGBT+ youth activist Enes Hocaoğulları was held in pretrial detention for 35 days beginning in August after speaking about conditions in Turkey at the Council of Europe.

Union activity, including the right to strike, is limited by law and in practice. Less than 15 percent of the workforce in Turkey is unionized, and that figure does not include the massive informal labor market. Law No. 4688 prohibits public-sector employees from striking. Antiunion activities by employers are common, and legal protections are poorly enforced. A system of threshold requirements limits unions’ ability to secure collective-bargaining rights. Trade unions and professional organizations face government interference and retaliation for activities that are seen as hostile to the political leadership’s interests. Despite these obstacles, workers in a number of sectors organized strikes or protests in the face of low or unpaid wages during 2025, prompting warnings or legal interventions by the government.

Judicial independence has been severely compromised, as thousands of judges and prosecutors have been replaced with government loyalists since 2016. The executive branch exerts strong partisan control over the courts. Under the presidential system that took effect in 2018, members of Turkey’s Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), which oversees judicial appointments and disciplinary measures, are appointed by the parliament and the president rather than by members of the judiciary. As a result, prosecutors and judges often toe the government line and have been criticized for a lack of impartiality. Judges who rule against the government have been removed and replaced, while those who convict Erdoğan’s critics have been promoted.

Although the Constitutional Court (AYM) has shown some independence in its decisions, it is not free from political influence and is regularly subjected to challenges from the executive and other high courts. The government’s noncompliance with judicial decisions, including binding rulings from the European Court of Human Rights and the AYM, remains a major problem. Since 2023, the AYM has clashed with the Court of Cassation and the parliamentary majority over the case of Can Atalay, a lawyer and activist who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2022 over his alleged involvement in the 2013 Gezi Park protests, then was elected to the parliament while behind bars. Atalay remained in detention as of 2025 despite multiple AYM rulings calling for his release.

Severe violations of due process persist in the judicial system. Defendants are often held in lengthy pretrial detention that can last for years. Prosecutors frequently wait months before unveiling charges and produce lengthy indictments with insufficient evidence. In many cases, lawyers defending people accused of terrorism face arrest themselves. Lower courts have defied rulings by higher courts that they are legally bound to implement.

Authorities continued to file arbitrary and politicized criminal cases against political opposition figures, civil society activists, and other perceived opponents of the government during 2025, and political prisoners jailed in previous years remained behind bars despite rulings from the European Court of Human Rights that identified violations of due process.

Turkish authorities are regularly accused of torture and other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees and prisoners. Specific groups, including Kurdish and LGBT+ people, face particular discrimination and abuse in custody. Prosecutors do not consistently investigate allegations of such abuse.

While the threat of terrorism has decreased significantly since 2018, attacks have continued to take place. As part of peace negotiations with the government, the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire in March 2025 and announced a decision to dissolve itself in May. However, the potential for violence by other terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State, persisted during the year.

Although Turkey’s laws guarantee equal treatment of all citizens, women and members of religious, ethnic, and sexual and gender minority groups suffer varying degrees of discrimination in practice. Women make up a growing part of the workforce, but gender bias and inequality remain pressing issues. Alevis and non-Muslims face systemic discrimination in schools and public-sector employment. Kurdish citizens continue to face discrimination, and Kurdish organizations, cultural institutions, and individuals have faced raids and arrests tied to their identity; in March 2025, Newroz celebrations proceeded peacefully, though with a heavy police presence.

While same-sex relations are not legally prohibited, the law does not explicitly protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and LGBT+ people experience widespread discrimination, police harassment, and violence in practice. LGBT+ people are banned from serving in the military. Top state officials frequently engage in homophobic hate speech, and the government continues to censor LGBT+ content in the media.

Turkey hosted nearly three million registered refugees and asylum seekers from various countries as of 2025. Most refugee children lack access to education, and most adults lack employment permits. Popular resentment and discriminatory political rhetoric against refugees has increased since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, and residency permits for refugees and migrants have become more difficult to obtain and renew. Reports also point to a growing number of deportations, some of which human rights groups have characterized as forced deportations. After the December 2024 ouster of the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Turkish government took steps to begin phasing out special protections for Syrian refugees. Syrians would eventually be required to obtain work permits and proof of income, student visas, or real estate to secure their legal residency. As of January 2026, Syrians were set to lose access to free health care in Turkey.

Freedom of movement is limited in some regions and for groups that are treated with suspicion by the government. In southeastern Turkey, movement has long been restricted due to the conflict between the government and the PKK, though progress in peace negotiations in early 2025 changed conditions somewhat. Separately, more than 125,000 public-sector workers who were fired or suspended following the coup attempt in 2016 have since been unable to find employment due to an atmosphere of guilt by association, and they cannot travel abroad as their passports have been canceled.

Refugees continue to face legal and practical obstacles to free movement and change of employment within the country. There were roughly 2.4 million registered Syrian refugees under temporary protection in Turkey as of December 2025. They cannot live or work outside the provinces where they are registered, and travel between provinces is allowed only with official permission obtained through a state-run electronic portal. Refugees’ identity documents can be deactivated if their addresses cannot be verified.

Private property rights are legally enshrined, but for the last decade, critics or opponents of the government have been subjected to intrusive tax and regulatory inspections. Since 2016, the assets of hundreds of companies, NGOs, and media outlets that were deemed to be associated with terrorist groups have been confiscated, severely harming public confidence in the rule of law and basic protections for free enterprise.

Men and women have equal inheritance rights under the civil code, but a mediation law allows heirs to reach their own agreements on distribution, potentially putting pressure on women to accept lesser shares.

Freedoms pertaining to personal status issues such as marriage, divorce, and child-rearing are inconsistently upheld. While divorce is legal, Erdoğan and the AKP have campaigned to dissuade women from seeking divorce and encourage them to bear at least three children; the government introduced new financial incentives for larger families during 2025. Child marriages, although illegal, often take place, mainly performed through unofficial religious ceremonies or by fraudulently obtaining marriage licenses using false identification. Contraception remains legal but is increasingly difficult to access.

Turkey’s rates of femicide and gender-based violence—which often involve domestic violence and attacks by current or former intimate partners—are among the world’s highest, and women’s rights activists have described a culture of impunity enabled by the government and the judiciary. According to Anıtsayaç, a website that tracks reports of femicides linked to domestic violence, at least 456 women were killed in 2025. Turkey’s 2021 withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty to prevent gender-based violence, removed key legal protections for women facing domestic abuse. Police are reluctant to intervene in domestic disputes, and few shelters for victims exist.

In August 2025, the Diyanet issued a strongly worded sermon calling for modest dress, raising concerns about the possibility of future legal restrictions on clothing and appearance.

The weakness of labor unions and the government’s willingness to act against organized labor continued to undermine equality of opportunity, protection from economic exploitation, and workplace safety. Workplace accidents have become frequent in recent years, and laborers have little recourse if injured. According to Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG), at least 2,105 workers died in work-related incidents during 2025. Child workers, migrant and refugee workers, and those employed in Turkey’s large informal sector, which makes up about a third of the overall economy, are especially vulnerable to economic exploitation.