ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has ranked Turkey as the third worst country in the world for parliamentarians, citing several factors, including the “violation of freedom of opinion and expression.”
The report, entitled "When the public turns hostile: Political violence against parliamentarians" was revealed to reporters in New York on Wednesday, just hours after a scuffle broke out between lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties over the appointment of a new minister.
The report shows that in 2025, 110 parliamentarians were subjected to violence or human rights violations. This makes Turkey the third worst country, after Yemen and Venezuela. The report lists the names of the affected lawmakers, all of whom are members of opposition parties, many of them Kurdish.
"There are a number of cases in Turkiye. We have been engaging with the parliamentary authorities for a long time on these issues. There is good cooperation in the sense that they are responding to the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians," IPU Human Rights Manager Rogier Huizenga told reporters.
Among the most frequent violations recorded are “lack of due process in proceedings against parliamentarians [and] violation of freedom of opinion and expression.”
Notably, the IPU does not directly accuse the Turkish government for the "violations."
Despite this, the IPU is set to hold its next meeting in Istanbul in April. Rudaw asked IPU Secretary General Martin Chungong why the organization still plans to convene in Turkey despite the report’s findings.
"Turkey is a member state of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and they are entitled to host meetings of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. And the goal, the policy of the IPU, is not to identify pariah states or non-go states. Our policy is to provide a forum wherein there is free discussion of all issues; no issue is taboo. I can assure you that the fact that we're going to Turkey does not mean that parliamentarians will not be at liberty to address the situation of human rights in Turkiye," he replied.
Namo Abdulla contributed to this article from New York.