The London Legal Group reported the murder of a Kurdish man, and one attack by a group on Syrian refugees in which knives were used and resulted in serious injuries.
Transgender Europe, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Human Rights First reported one murder. Transgender Europe reported two additional murders; four sexual assaults; 33 physical assaults, 21 of which involved the use of a weapon, eight of which were committed by a group and two in which a weapon was used. Transgender Europe also reported three threats, an arson attack, one incident of damage to property, one robbery and two incidents of thefts accompanied by threats.
The London Legal Group reported the murder of a transgender woman; one attempted murder; and four physical assaults, one of which was carried out by a group and another involved a knife.
In its "Concluding observations on the combined fourth to sixth periodic reports of Turkey", the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recommended that racist motivation should be included as an aggravating circumstance in penal legislation. CERD expressed its concern at reports of hate crimes, including against Roma people, and recommended that all hate crime cases be effectively investigated and prosecuted, that law enforcement officials be trained, and that disaggregated statistics on hate crimes be collected and published.
Following its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the Turkish authorities expressed support for the recommendation to ensure the investigation, prosecution and sentencing of hate crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The Turkish authorities consider these measures already implemented or being implemented. Turkey committed itself to examine and respond to recommendations to amend criminal legislation to explicitly prohibit hate crimes against LGBT people and to publish disaggregated data on such hate crimes.
In its fifth report on Turkey, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recommended that Turkey introduce racist, homophobic and transphobic motivations as an aggravating factor in its criminal code, and that the police strengthen co-operation with civil society to encourage the reporting of hate crimes. ECRI further recommended to create a system for police to record hate crimes, including adopting guidelines on hate crime recording and investigation by the police.
The Holy See and the Association of Protestant Churches reported two physical assaults, including one in which shots were fired at a Baptist pastor; 23 incidents of threats; and four incidents of vandalism. The authorities reported back that investigations were on-going in some of the cases, whereas no information was available for other cases as the victims and incidents could not be identified based on the reported information. No bias motivation was recorded for any of the incidents.
ODIHR observes that Turkey has not periodically reported the numbers of hate crimes recorded by police to ODIHR.