Eylem Ertürk

This report on the shrinking civic space in Turkey examines the restraints placed on civil society organisations and the impact of these restraints on their field of work and target groups, based on the experiences of 48 civil society organisations taking part in the Support to Rights Programme during 2020-2021. These 48 rights-based organisations involved in the programme supported by the European Union Delegation to Turkey, in partnership with the Truth Justice Memory Center (Hafıza Merkezi) and Heinrich Böll Stiftung Istanbul, share their experiences in order to highlight common issues, make their needs visible and share possible solutions with each other.

What has been mentioned by the participant organisations during the two-year project was brought together from a perspective that is based on local and city-based micro experiences, focusing on the needs of the target groups and the organisations themselves, pointing to issues that unite the civic space beyond thematic categories, opening up areas of struggle beyond losses, drawing on concrete examples and the impact on the field, and finding hope in solidarity. We hope that this report, which is based on concrete and actual experiences of rights-based civil society organisations in Turkey, contributes to enhancing the chances for cooperation and solidarity through the exchange of knowledge and expertise to broaden the shrinking civic space.