section_path: Government and politics/Human rights
section_name: Human rights
paragraph_text: Human rights
  
  The human rights record of Turkey has been the subject of much controversy and international condemnation. Between 1959 and 2011 the European Court of Human Rights made more than 2,400 judgements against Turkey for human rights violations on issues such as Kurdish rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, and media freedom. Turkey's human rights record continues to be a significant obstacle to the country's membership of the EU.
  
  In the latter half of the 1970s, Turkey suffered from political violence between far-left and far-right militant groups, which culminated in the military coup of 1980. The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union) was founded in 1978 by a group of Kurdish militants led by Abdullah Öcalan, seeking the foundation of an independent Kurdish state based on Marxist–Leninist ideology. The initial reason given by the PKK for this was the oppression of Kurds in Turkey. A full-scale insurgency began in 1984, when the PKK announced a Kurdish uprising. With time the PKK modified its demands into equal rights for ethnic Kurds and provincial autonomy within Turkey. Since 1980, the Turkish parliament stripped its members of immunity from prosecution, including 44 deputies most of which from the pro-Kurdish parties.
  
  In 2013, widespread protests erupted, sparked by a plan to demolish Gezi Park but soon growing into general anti-government dissent. On 20 May 2016, the Turkish parliament stripped almost a quarter of its members of immunity from prosecution, including 101 deputies from the pro-Kurdish HDP and the main opposition CHP party. By 2020, under the pretext of responding to a failed coup attempt in 2016, authorities had arrested or imprisoned more than 90,000 Turkish citizens. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the AKP government has waged crackdowns on media freedom. Many journalists have been arrested using charges of "terrorism" and "anti-state activities". In 2020, the CPJ identified 18 jailed journalists in Turkey (including the editorial staff of Cumhuriyet, Turkey's oldest newspaper still in circulation).