Can you protect minorities without recognizing them as minorities? The pitfalls of the Turkish legal and policy framework on radicalization

Abstract

Turkey has been struggling with political violence since the Ottoman Empire period. Its historical ethnic-religious conflicts and sensitivities; and restrictive approach to minorities adopted in the Lausanne Peace Treaty continue to shape its current legal and policy framework. The constitutional framework has maintained these concerns despite the fact that different constitutions were enacted across time. The relevant legislative framework beyond the constitutional context concerning radicalization has a similar security-based approach in which there is not a specific conceptualization of radicalization: discourses outside the constitution and official ideology are treated as threats to national integrity and evaluated under the context of counter-terrorism. The legislation is punitive, limited in scope regarding the hate crimes, and applied in a biased way to protect the majority ethnic and religious groups. The available legislative context with respect to radicalization doesn’t encompass the online contexts, and any effort to detect radical content on online platforms tends to target minorities and dissident groups rather than hate speeches and discriminatory attitudes towards them. The institutional and policy framework reflects the approach in the legal framework in that policies ignore ethnic and religious diversity, downplay the crimes against minorities with a security approach on radicalization and deradicalization, and protect the dominant groups rather than minorities and dissidents. The Islamization policies of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its further closing down the political space with a super-presidential system also exacerbate the situation and feelings of insecurity among non-Muslim and heterodox Muslim groups such as the Alevis.