Turkey under close scrutiny in US Congress
Turkey was described as a personalist regime at a House hearing examining its authoritarian slide, press repression, judicial manipulation, and refusal to comply with European court rulings.
Turkey once again found itself at the center of intense criticism in Washington. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission organized a special hearing on Ankara’s “authoritarian slide” and the question of whether the country can return to democratic paths.
Participants examined a series of issues, from political repression and the lack of judicial independence to the state of the press and systematic pressures on religious minorities. As evidenced by the Commission’s material, Turkey has been characterized as “Not Free” by Freedom House since 2018, with the situation continuously deteriorating.
“Erdogan’s survival tools” – the institutions
Henri Barkey, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, described Turkey as a personalist regime after 2016. According to him, courts, prosecutors, the electoral commission and other institutions have been transformed into weapons for President Erdogan’s political survival.
Particular emphasis was given to the arrest of Constantinople Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in March 2025, shortly before his potential presidential candidacy, as well as to the charges against hundreds of his associates. Barkey characterized this action as the most aggressive use of prosecutorial power against electoral competition in the history of the Turkish Republic. He also referred to the intervention in the Republican People’s Party with the annulment of congress results in 2023, which aimed at weakening the opposition.
The discussion extended to Ankara’s refusal to comply with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, with the cases of Osman Kavala and Can Atalay as characteristic examples. By the end of 2025, Turkey had over eighty unexecuted ECHR decisions and a corresponding number from its own Constitutional Court.
In the area of press freedom, Turkey ranks 159th globally according to Reporters Without Borders, while the “disinformation” law is frequently used for prosecuting journalists.
Political prisoners and minorities
The speakers emphasized the existence of more than 15,000 political prisoners, including journalists, lawyers, elected officials, academics and activists. Particular reference was made to the targeting of Kurdish politicians and imprisoned former HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş.
Michael Rubin, from the Middle East Forum and the American Enterprise Institute, was particularly sharp. He connected internal repression with historical revisionism and denial of genocides, specifically mentioning the Armenian and Pontic Greek genocides.
He emphasized the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Hagia Sophia and the Halki Theological School, stressing that the U.S. should impose sanctions if Turkey continues to interfere in the appointment of clergy and impose restrictions on religious matters.
“Hostage diplomacy”
His personal experience was shared by Serkan Gölge, a former political prisoner and scientist who had worked on NASA programs. He was arrested after the 2016 coup attempt based on an anonymous complaint, in a case he characterized as political and connected to diplomatic negotiations. “The charge came first, the evidence followed,” he said characteristically, speaking of “hostage diplomacy.”
The hearing did not stop at cataloging the problems. It raised the question of what options the U.S. has to support democracy in Turkey, emphasizing that the behavior of a NATO ally affects the cohesion of the West as a whole.
As Parapolitika reports in its article, this discussion shows that in the American capital, Turkey is now being examined comprehensively, as a matter of ally credibility, regional stability and respect for basic democratic principles.
