Turkey’s human rights groups in a funding squeeze

By Murat Çelikkan

Opendemocracy - 10 December 2013

In their study, “Universal values, foreign money,” Ron and Pandya find that most human rights groups in selected parts of India, Mexico and Morocco rely heavily on foreign funds. The authors then raise provocative questions about why this is so. Poverty? Fear of government retribution? Lack of public trust in human rights groups themselves?
Their findings inspired me to investigate the same questions in my own country, Turkey. I quickly discovered that there are almost no studies of nonprofit funding in Turkey, and that is especially true for Turkey’s human rights organizations. So this essay is limited to what little I could learn about the largest domestic rights groups in the country.

First, a little history

In 2005, a group of activists created a national umbrella organization for Turkish human rights organizations, the Human Rights Joint Platform (İnsan Hakları Ortak Platformu - İHOP). Its founding members were the Human Rights Association (IHD, 1986), Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (Türkiye İnsan Hakları Vakfı - TİHV, 1990), Organization of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People (İnsan Hakları ve Mazlumlar Derneği - Mazlumder, 1991), Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneği_- HYD, 1993), Amnesty International - Turkey (Uluslararsı Af Örgütü - UAÖ, 1995), and the Human Rights Research Association (İnsan Hakları Araştırmaları Derneği- İHAD, 2006). Although the Human Rights Foundation and Mazlumder later abstained from formal membership, they still participate in some IHOP activities.

To read more...