I 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 4546 
To assist those subject to politically motivated charges in Turkey, and for 
other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 20, 2021 
Mr. JEFFRIES (for himself and Ms. CHENEY) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition 
to the Committee on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently 
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provi-
sions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To assist those subject to politically motivated charges in 
Turkey, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Turkey Human Rights Promotion Act of 2021’’. 
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 
this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. 
Sec. 2. Findings. 
Sec. 3. Definitions. 
Sec. 4. Statement of policy. 
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Sec. 5. Sense of Congress on press freedom. 
Sec. 6. Sense of Congress on internet freedom. 
Sec. 7. Sense of Congress on protecting lawyers and promoting fair trials. 
Sec. 8. Sense of Congress on accountability for human rights violations. 
Sec. 9. Political prisoners assistance. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings: 
(1) The United States values its longstanding 
alliance with the Republic of Turkey and its friend-
ship with the people of Turkey, and seeks to pro-
mote their democratic aspirations. 
(2) Actions taken by the Government of Turkey 
in the aftermath of the attempted coup of July 2016 
have significantly expanded the government’s crack-
down on freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, 
and association. Freedom House assessed Turkey to 
be ‘‘not free’’ in its Freedom in the World 2021 re-
port. 
(3) Since July 2016, Turkish authorities have 
detained tens of thousands of people they accused of 
aiding the coup attempt or supporting terrorism, 
sweeping up journalists, opposition politicians, dis-
sidents, and others. The end of the state of emer-
gency in 2018 has not led to an improvement in fun-
damental freedoms in Turkey as the Government of 
Turkey has codified some of the provisions from the 
state of emergency into law. 
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(4) The Government of Turkey has used the at-
tempted coup as justification for a broader crack-
down. 
(5) The 2020 Country Reports on Human 
Rights Practices: Turkey states, ‘‘Under broad 
antiterror legislation passed in 2018 the government 
continued to restrict fundamental freedoms and 
compromised the rule of law. Since the 2016 coup 
attempt, authorities have dismissed or suspended 
more than 60,000 police and military personnel and 
approximately 125,000 civil servants, dismissed one- 
third of the judiciary, arrested or imprisoned more 
than 90,000 citizens, and closed more than 1,500 
nongovernmental organizations on terrorism-related 
grounds, primarily for alleged ties to the movement 
of cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government ac-
cused of masterminding the coup attempt and des-
ignated as the leader of the ‘Fethullah Terrorist Or-
ganization.’ ’’. 
(6) A 2020 Reuters investigative press report 
revealed that the Government of Turkey terminated 
4,000 judges and prosecutors since 2016. A 2020 
Human Rights Watch report highlighted the contin-
ued arbitrary detention of lawyers, which runs con-
trary to Turkey’s obligations under the International 
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Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, done at New 
York December 19, 1966, the Convention for the 
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental 
Freedoms, done at Rome November 4, 1950 (com-
monly known as the ‘‘European Convention on 
Human Rights’’), and other human rights obliga-
tions. 
(7) Turkey is the world’s second worst jailer of 
journalists, according to the Committee to Protect 
Journalists. 
(8) President Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an began a 
crackdown on journalism before the 2016 coup at-
tempt, which he then intensified. The Committee to 
Protect Journalists estimated that Turkey was hold-
ing at least 37 journalists in jail at the end of 2020. 
According to a September 18, 2019, joint statement 
by civil society organizations, at least 180 media 
outlets have been forcibly closed since the coup at-
tempt of which Kurdish-language and Kurdish-fo-
cused media outlets are especially vulnerable. 
(9) The Government of Turkey has also tar-
geted writers and academics. Of roughly 2,000 aca-
demics who signed a January 2016 petition calling 
for a restart to peace negotiations between the gov-
ernment and the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, 
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more than 700 scholars were criminally charged with 
making propaganda for a terrorist organization. 
(10) The Government of Turkey continues its 
unjust, 3-year detention of civil society leader 
Osman Kavala. In 2017, Turkish authorities 
charged Kavala and 15 others with ‘‘attempting to 
overthrow the government or to prevent it from per-
forming its duties’’ based on ill-founded accusations 
regarding the group’s role in 2013 protests. In De-
cember 2019, the European Court of Human Rights 
(ECHR) ruled that Kavala’s detention took place in 
the absence of sufficient evidence that he had com-
mitted an offence, in violation of his right to liberty 
and security under the European Convention on 
Human Rights. Turkey responded by acquitting 
Kavala, but immediately rearresting him under new 
charges relating to the 2016 coup attempt and espi-
onage and has continued to ignore the binding 
ECHR ruling. 
(11) In 2017, Turkish police arrested Amnesty 
International Turkey’s board chair, Taner Kilic¸, and 
its director, Idil Eser, charging them as members of 
a terrorist organization. The charges against Kilic¸ 
were based on the mere allegation, later found to be 
false, that he had downloaded a messaging applica-
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tion. Yet in July 2020, a Turkish court sentenced 
Kilic¸ to over 6 years in prison and Eser was sen-
tenced to more than 2 years in prison. 
(12) The Government of Turkey continues its 
unjust detention of Selhattin Demirtas¸, a Kurdish 
politician detained with other members of the Peo-
ple’s Democratic Party on November 4, 2016. 
Demirtas was a member of parliament at the time 
of his arrest for allegedly ‘‘carrying out terrorist 
propaganda’’ by speaking in support of peace nego-
tiations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The Eu-
ropean Court of Human Rights ruled in November 
2018 that his detention ‘‘had pursued the predomi-
nant ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and lim-
iting freedom of political debate, which was at the 
very core of the concept of a democratic society’’. In 
December 2020, the ECHR ruled that Turkey must 
‘‘immediately release’’ Demirtas from prison, which 
Turkey continues to ignore. 
(13) The Government of Turkey has targeted 
lawyers, with particular focus on criminal defense 
lawyers, prosecuting them for discharging their pro-
fessional duties and associating them, without evi-
dence, with the alleged crimes of their clients. Fair 
trial rights and protections for lawyers have been re-
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stricted just as they are most critically needed given 
mass detentions and the wider crackdown on dissent. 
Police have also intimidated lawyers and obstructed 
their work 
(14) The Government of Turkey heavily re-
stricts and censors the internet. In 2019, the gov-
ernment blocked more than 408,000 websites, 
40,000 tweets, 10,000 YouTube videos, and 6,200 
Facebook shares, and blocked Wikipedia between 
2017 and 2020. In early 2021, the government en-
acted a new social media law, which threatens social 
media companies that do not obey requests to re-
move content. Twitter, and its live video-streaming 
services, are currently facing pressure in the form of 
advertising bans by the Government of Turkey as a 
result of their unwillingness to appoint local rep-
resentatives to handle government removal requests. 
(15) Turkey ranks among the countries with 
the highest number of content removal requests sent 
to Twitter and Facebook, according to the compa-
nies’ transparency reports. 
(16) The Government of Turkey has dem-
onstrated a disregard for fundamental freedoms be-
yond Turkey’s borders, including in the United 
States. In 2016, members of President Erdog˘an’s 
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security detail engaged in violence against journal-
ists reporting on an event at the Brookings Institu-
tion. During President Erdog˘an’s May 2017 visit to 
Washington, DC, individuals from the Turkish Em-
bassy grounds pushed past District of Columbia po-
lice officers to brutally attack individuals dem-
onstrating peacefully in opposition to policies of the 
Government of Turkey. 
(17) The Government of Turkey has abused 
international institutions to target critics, ‘‘trig-
gering a flood of Interpol ‘red notice’ requests to de-
tain critics abroad’’, according to Freedom House. 
(18) Since 2014, the Government of Turkey has 
pursued opponents and critics in more than 30 coun-
tries, securing the renditions of at least 58 people 
without due process in what Freedom House has 
characterized as a ‘‘campaign of transnational re-
pression’’, unrivaled by any other country. In a 
March 3, 2021 report, the Office of the High Com-
missioner for Human Rights stated that the increase 
in cases in arbitrary detention ‘‘may constitute 
crimes against humanity’’. 
(19) The Government of Turkey threatens to 
escalate its targeting of critics internationally, con-
sistent with an overly broad domestic counterter-
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rorism campaign. On October 30, 2019, President 
Erdog˘an stated, ‘‘Some countries eliminate terrorists 
whom they consider as a threat to their national se-
curity, wherever they are. Therefore, this means 
those countries accept Turkey has the same right. 
This includes the terrorists they shake hands with 
and praise.’’ He added that he hoped to deliver 
‘‘good news’’ on the matter soon. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) POLITICAL PRISONER.—The term ‘‘political 
prisoner’’ means a person who has been deprived of 
his or her personal liberty if— 
(A) the detention has been imposed in vio-
lation of one of the fundamental guarantees set 
out in the European Convention on Human 
Rights, particularly— 
(i) freedom of thought, conscience, 
and religion; 
(ii) freedom of expression and infor-
mation; and 
(iii) freedom of assembly and associa-
tion; 
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(B) the detention has been imposed for 
purely political reasons without connection to 
any offense; 
(C) for political motives, the length of the 
detention or its conditions are clearly out of 
proportion to the offense of which the person 
has been found guilty or is suspected; 
(D) for political motives, he or she is de-
tained in a discriminatory manner as compared 
to other persons; or 
(E) the detention is the result of pro-
ceedings which were clearly unfair and appear 
to be connected with political motives of the au-
thorities. 
(2) PRISONER
OF
CONSCIENCE.—The term 
‘‘prisoner of conscience’’ means any person who— 
(A) is imprisoned or otherwise physically 
restricted solely for the peaceful exercise of his 
or her human rights; and 
(B) has not used violence or advocated vio-
lence or hatred. 
SEC. 4. STATEMENT OF POLICY. 
It is the policy of the United States— 
(1) to support democracy, peace, and prosperity 
in Turkey; 
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(2) to oppose the abuse of counterterrorism au-
thorities, including targeting journalists, political op-
ponents, dissidents, minorities (including Kurds), 
and others engaged in exercising their right to free-
doms of expression, peaceful assembly, or associa-
tion; 
(3) to consider those unfairly detained or im-
prisoned under counterterrorism authorities on po-
litically motivated grounds to be prisoners of con-
science or political prisoners, as appropriate, unless 
there is probative evidence of specific criminal mis-
conduct presented in proceedings that comply with 
international fair trial standards; 
(4) to use all diplomatic tools to advocate that 
all prisoners of conscience and political prisoners in 
Turkey should be released; 
(5) to support and pressure the Government of 
Turkey in the repeal or amendment of— 
(A) all anti-terrorism laws and regulations 
that allow the government to unjustly target 
journalists, political opponents, dissidents, and 
minorities; 
(B) all laws and regulations that violate 
the right to freedoms of expression, peaceful as-
sembly, or association in a manner not per-
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mitted by international legal standards, includ-
ing laws and regulations that seek to punish 
those who insult political figures or denigrate 
the Turkish nation or state institutions; and 
(C) all laws and regulations that violate 
the right to a fair trial; and 
(6) to oppose the export to Turkey by any 
country of surveillance technologies, including soft-
ware, that could be used to monitor the activities of 
journalists, political opponents, dissidents, or minori-
ties. 
SEC. 5. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON PRESS FREEDOM. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) the Government of Turkey must take steps 
to significantly improve the dire climate for journal-
ists and those supporting the journalism profession, 
including— 
(A) ending the enforcement of draconian 
laws and regulations that restrict freedom of 
expression; and 
(B) releasing all journalists and media 
workers who have been imprisoned for fulfilling 
their professional responsibilities; 
(2) the Department of State should provide as-
sistance and warnings of impending politically moti-
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vated detention or harm to journalists and media 
workers in danger in Turkey, regardless of citizen-
ship status, including journalists working for Kurd-
ish media organizations; 
(3) United States Government officials should 
prioritize demands to release unfairly detained jour-
nalists and media workers in their communications 
with Turkish officials; and 
(4) press freedom and the freedom of expres-
sion are fundamental human rights and should be 
upheld and protected in Turkey and everywhere. 
SEC. 6. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON INTERNET FREEDOM. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) the Government of Turkey must cease its 
ongoing crackdown on free expression on the inter-
net, including by repealing or amending laws that 
allow the government to block a website or remove 
content from the website if there is sufficient sus-
picion that the site is insulting political figures; 
(2) the Department of State should support 
and pressure the Government of Turkey in halting 
its frequent requests that social media companies 
block accounts and content of journalists and media 
outlets, ending its blocking of Wikipedia, and ensur-
ing that the Radio and Television Supreme Council 
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does not arbitrarily restrict online streaming services 
through a costly and opaque licensing regime; and 
(3) escalating controls regulating internet use 
are an attempt by the Government of Turkey to si-
lence one of the last platforms for independent jour-
nalism in the country. 
SEC. 7. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON PROTECTING LAWYERS 
AND PROMOTING FAIR TRIALS. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) the Government of Turkey must— 
(A) halt its indiscriminate detention and 
prosecution of lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and 
court officials, and its targeting of lawyers’ as-
sociations; 
(B) repeal laws restricting the right of law-
yers to discharge their professional duties, the 
rights of suspects to legal counsel, and the right 
of lawyer-client privileged communication; 
(C) ensure that lawyers can visit detainees 
in police custody, and remind police and pros-
ecutors of the protected role of lawyers under 
Article 14 of the International Covenant on 
Civil and Political Rights, Articles 5 and 6 of 
the European Convention on Human Rights, 
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