Report finds 29 religiously motivated hate crimes in Türkiye in 2021

An Alevi home marked with X.

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The Freedom of Belief Initiative has released a report about "hate crimes based on religion, belief or unbelief in Türkiye."

The initiative was able to detect 29 such hate crimes in 16 provinces throughout 2021.

Alevis, a religious minority in Türkiye, were the target in 12 of the incidents. Christians were the target in 10 incidents, Jews were in five incidents, and atheists were in two incidents.

As a general trend, hate crimes are much less reported and documented than other crimes, the report said and listed the following reasons for this situation:

"Victims" are accustomed to hateful acts and they have a "higher threshold" for reporting such incidents.

People choose not to report those incidents, considering the risk of social exclusion.

Peoples' concerns that their allegations won't be taken seriously and that they may be subjected to even worse hate crimes, including from the police, if they report incidents.

Hate crimes not investigated

The hate crime aspect was not effectively investigated in any of the 29 incidents, according to the report.

The incidents included damage to property, threat, physical attacks on people, damage to places of worship and cemeteries, harassment and insult.

Inadequate legislation

The Human Rights Action Plan announced by the government in April 2021 included the targets of new legal arrangements for hate crimes and creating a database of hate crimes and discrimination.

These targets have not been achieved, and the country's legislation on hate crimes is inadequate, the report noted.

The fight against hate crimes must be developed comprehensively and by considering "deep social traumas," the report said.

The initiative also called for new legal arrangements against hate crime. (HA/VK)