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Capital punishment was abolished in Turkey in 2004, and no prisoners have been executed since October 1984. [1] Before that, over 500 convicts sentenced to death were excecuted. The method of execution was hanging.
According to Hanz Chiappetta, since the foundation of Turkey in 1923, capital punishment has been carried out 588 times. [2] Prior to 1984, executions would usually happen after military interventions. Adnan Menderes, who served as Prime Minister, was hanged on 17 September 1961 following the 1960 coup d'état, along with two other cabinet members, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan. Student leaders Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan and Yusuf Aslan were hanged on 6 May 1972 after the 1971 military memorandum. Following the 1980 coup d'état, between 1980 and 1984, a total of 50 men, including 27 political activists, were executed by Turkish authorities. [3]
Twenty-four articles of the 1926 Turkish Penal Code (Law 765) provided for a mandatory death penalty, 19 of them for crimes against the state, the government, the Constitution and military, and a further ten for criminal offences like murder and rape. These 24 articles defined a total of 29 offences. [4]
Under Article 12 of Law 765, death sentences were to be carried out by hanging after being approved by act of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi), or the TBMM. Within the TBMM, they were reviewed by the Judicial Committee before being voted on by parliament as a whole. This decision had to be ratified by the President, who had the power to commute death sentences on grounds of age or ill-health. [4]
By Law 4771 of 9 August 2002 (the 3rd Package for Harmonization with the European Union), the death penalty was abolished for peacetime offences. Law 5218 of 14 July 2004 abolished the death penalty for all times. [5] Turkey ratified Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, overseen by the Council of Europe, in February 2006.
Abdullah Öcalan was also sentenced to be executed in June 1999, [6] however Turkey commuted his sentence into imprisonment for life in October 2002. [7]
Since the failed 2016 coup d'état, some politicians have talked about restoring the death penalty. [8] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey since 2014, announced on 29 October 2016 that the government will present a draft law restoring the death penalty to the Turkish Parliament ("and I will countersign it"). [9]
After his victory in the constitutional referendum in 2017, Erdogan made favorable statements on the reinstatement of capital punishment, announcing he would discuss the possibility with Devlet Bahçeli of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the then-Turkish prime minister Binali Yıldırım. [10] In view of this happening, the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker announced that such an event would mean the end of an eventual Turkish accession to the European Union. [11]
A 2011 poll found 65% of people wanted it reinstated for “certain crimes”. [12]
In 2019, a ORC survey asked: “Would you support the death penalty for the crimes of child abuse, murder of women and terrorism?” 71.7% of respondents said they would. [13]
Compared to other countries that use(d) hanging (such as United Kingdom or Japan) with a complex gallows designed to drop the condemned and break the neck, Turkey's gallows were very simple and inexpensive (similar to Iran). People convicted for military crimes were executed by firing squad.[ citation needed ]
The death sentence was replaced by aggravated life imprisonment (ağırlaştırılmış müebbet hapis cezası). According to Article 9 of Law 5275 on the Execution of Sentences [14] these prisoners are held in individual cells in high security prisons and are allowed to exercise in a neighbouring yard one hour per day.[ citation needed ]
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime, usually following an authorised, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods, including hanging, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, electrocution, and gassing.
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey. Hanging is also a method of suicide.
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom predates the formation of the UK, having been used within the British Isles from ancient times until the second half of the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964; capital punishment for murder was suspended in 1965 and finally abolished in 1969. Although unused, the death penalty remained a legally defined punishment for certain offences such as treason until it was completely abolished in 1998; the last execution for treason took place in 1946. In 2004, Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom; it prohibits the restoration of the death penalty as long as the UK is a party to the convention.
Capital punishment in Canada dates back to Canada's earliest history, including its period as a French colony and, after 1763, its time as a British colony. From 1867 to the elimination of the death penalty for murder on July 26, 1976, 1,481 people had been sentenced to death, and 710 had been executed. Of those executed, 697 were men and 13 women. The only method used in Canada for capital punishment of civilians after the end of the French regime was hanging. The last execution in Canada was the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin on December 11, 1962, at Toronto's Don Jail. The National Defence Act prescribed the death penalty for certain military offences until 1999, although no military executions had been carried out since 1946.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Sri Lanka.
Capital punishment in Australia was a form of punishment in Australia that has been abolished in all jurisdictions. Queensland abolished the death penalty in 1922. Tasmania did the same in 1968. The Commonwealth abolished the death penalty in 1973, with application also in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Victoria did so in 1975, South Australia in 1976, and Western Australia in 1984. New South Wales abolished the death penalty for murder in 1955, and for all crimes in 1985. In 2010, the Commonwealth Parliament passed legislation prohibiting the re-establishment of capital punishment by any state or territory. Australian law prohibits the extradition or deportation of a prisoner to another jurisdiction if they could be sentenced to death for any crime.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Malaysian law.
Capital punishment remained in Polish law until September 1, 1998, but from 1989 executions were suspended, the last one taking place one year earlier. No death penalty is envisaged in the current Polish penal law.
Capital punishment in Georgia was completely abolished on 1 May 2000 when the country signed Protocol 6 to the ECHR. Later Georgia also adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. Capital punishment was replaced with life imprisonment.
Capital punishment was abolished in Suriname in 2015.
The island country of Jersey is a state in which capital punishment has been abolished.
Life imprisonment in Turkey is a legal form of punishment and the most severe form of punishment. In most cases life imprisonment replaced capital punishment. Law 4771 of 3 August 2002 abolished the death penalty for peace time and replaced capital punishment with life imprisonment for 17 provisions of the Turkish Penal Code. Law 5218 of 14 July 2004 abolished the death penalty completely. This law provided that in some 40 provisions of the Turkish Penal Code and other laws such as the Law on Forests the death penalty was replaced by aggravated life imprisonment.
Hıdır Aslan was a Kurdish rebel in Turkey, member of Devrimci Yol who was sentenced to death and executed by hanging.
Capital punishment is no longer a legal punishment in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
Capital punishment is legal in most countries of the Middle East. Much of the motivation for the retention of the death penalty has been religious in nature, as the Qur'an allows or mandates executions for various offences.
Capital punishment in Gibraltar included public execution in the nineteenth century until 1864. The last sentence of death was passed in 1952. Under British law, capital punishment was almost abolished in 1965, in line with British practice. It was entirely abolished in 2002 along with all other British Overseas Territories.
Capital punishment in Montenegro was first prescribed by law in 1798. It was abolished on 19 June 2002. The last execution, by shooting, took place on 29 January 1981, and the two last death sentences were pronounced on 11 October 2001. Montenegro is bound by the following international conventions prohibiting capital punishment : Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as Protocols No. 6 and No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 26 of the Montenegrin Constitution (2007) that outlawed the death penalty states: "In Montenegro, capital punishment punishment is forbidden”.
Capital punishment has been abolished in Seychelles. The country permanently abolished the death penalty by a Constitutional amendment in June 1993.
Capital punishment remains a legal penalty for multiple crimes in the Gambia. However, the country has taken recent steps towards abolishing the death penalty.
Capital punishment has been abolished in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone abolished capital punishment in July 2021 following a decision by the nation's Parliament.
