The 80th Session of the United Nations (UN) Committee Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment began on 8 July and will continue until 26 July.

Within the scope of the sessions, crimes committed by the Turkish state will also be discussed. The session, where representatives of non-governmental organizations that submit reports to the sessions on Turkey will attend and questions will be asked to Turkey, will take place on 17-18 July.

In a report submitted to these sessions by Human Rights Watch, attention was drawn to the torture and ill-treatment in Turkish prisons and the war crimes committed in the Northern and Eastern Syrian regions occupied by the Turkish state and its affiliated armed groups.

The report said: "In areas of northern Syria where Turkey exercises effective control, Human Rights Watch has documented a pattern of abductions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, torture and sexual violence in detention by the various factions of a loose coalition of armed groups, the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army, as well as the Military Police, a force established by Turkish authorities and the Syrian Interim Government in 2018, ostensibly to curb abuses. 

The report identifies the responsibility of Turkey as the occupying power to curb and ensure accountability for ongoing abuses including torture and enforced disappearances in areas of Syria under its control."

The report also said that "Human Rights Watch has documented cases of enforced disappearances of Turkish nationals in Turkey, reporting on five cases in 2017, and eight cases in 2019-20, as well as documenting cases of Turkish nationals being abducted and forcibly disappeared from countries around the world, and removed to Turkey where they resurface in custody. The majority of these cases concern men accused of links with the group the Turkish authorities refer to as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure (FETÖ/PDY) and hold responsible for the military coup attempt."

The report added that: "Human Rights Watch has also extensively documented multiple incidents in which members of the security forces have tortured, shot or otherwise violently pushed back Syrian and Afghan men whom they apprehended while attempting to cross the border into Turkey, as well as the coercion of Syrian and Afghan nationals held in deportation centers to sign voluntary return forms before their summary removal to Syria or Afghanistan. In March 2024, a Tajik opposition activist living as a registered asylum seeker in Istanbul disappeared, with reports that he was unlawfully removed to Dushanbe where there are fears that he has been tortured in detention."