Levent Kenez/Stockholm
The mass detentions of environmental volunteers ahead of the July 7-8 NATO summit in Ankara are raising critical questions over civil liberties, protest rights and diplomatic guarantees as Turkey prepares to host the United Nations COP31 climate conference in the southern city of Antalya, from November 9 to 20, 2026.
Opposition lawmakers formally confronted government officials during a July 16 meeting of the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, demanding clear parameters for public demonstrations and civil society participation during the upcoming global summit. Halil Hasar, the head of Turkey’s Climate Change Presidency in the Ministry of Environment, acknowledged the parliamentary inquiries but declined to offer explicit security guarantees for public protests outside UN-controlled zones, stating only that authorities do not anticipate security disruptions during the event.
The legislative push follows a sweeping security sweep conducted on June 23, 2026, by Turkish police and gendarmerie ahead of the July 7–8 NATO Leaders’ Summit in Ankara. The operation resulted in the detention of 668 individuals in terrorism-related investigations, including 10 volunteers from the Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion (TEMA), a leading nongovernmental organization having Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) consultative status with the United Nations.
Nearly two weeks after the conclusion of the NATO summit, the 10 TEMA volunteers, ranging in age from 55 to 75 and including six women, remain jailed in Ankara’s Sincan Prison following the rejection of their initial release petition. Defense attorney Süleyman Çetin confirmed that a second appeal is pending in the Ankara courts, citing severe backlogs.
“The prosecution refuses to release them simply to avoid admitting a procedural error,” Çetin told Turkish media, adding that judicial staff are working past midnight to process ongoing detentions. “These individuals were detained due to an administrative and intelligence mistake. The NATO Summit has ended, yet these people remain behind bars.”
According to legal filings, the detained volunteers include TEMA Ankara Provincial Representative Nevzat Özer, 70, and TEMA employee Ümit Özdemir, 55, along with volunteers Selahattin Başıbüyük, 71, Fatma Didem Genç, 56, Bircan Temiz, 65, Birgül Öztekin, 66, Zekai Atabay, 56, Gül Özer, 65, Gül Banu Yürür, 65, and Gamzeli Sorgun, 58. The group was intercepted by law enforcement on June 3 while returning from an official TEMA nature outing to the Nallıhan Bird Sanctuary. After briefly pausing at a gas station near a labor demonstration organized by mining workers, their bus was stopped three times for identity checks before the volunteers were taken into custody by the Ankara Provincial Gendarmerie counterterrorism branch on allegations of links to a banned revolutionary organization.
Çetin noted that examinations of seized digital devices found no incriminating evidence, while several elderly volunteers face compounding health crises inside prison.
The ongoing detentions have raised concerns over how Turkish security forces will manage civil society access to the two zones at the UN climate summit: the Blue Zone and the Green Zone.
Like TEMA, many Turkish civil society organizations have consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC):
The Blue Zone operates under direct United Nations administrative and security jurisdiction. Reserved for accredited diplomatic delegations, state officials, media and ECOSOC-accredited nongovernmental organizations, international law applies within its perimeter for the duration of the 15-day conference. While UN protocol allows registered attendees to conduct panel discussions, side events and sanctioned indoor demonstrations in the Blue Zone, entry remains strictly controlled through the host country’s accreditation portal managed by the Turkish Ministry of Environment.
The Green Zone remains under the sole administrative authority and legal jurisdiction of the host government. Designed as an open platform for domestic businesses, municipalities, academic institutions and local nongovernmental organizations, the host nation exercises absolute authority over public assembly permits, police deployments and street demonstrations in the Green Zone and surrounding public spaces.
During the July 16 parliamentary committee session, Hasar confirmed that approximately 7,000 UN-accredited organizations globally are eligible to request Blue Zone access, noting that TEMA previously hosted official side events at the Turkish pavilion during past UN conferences. However, opposition parliamentarians stressed that the ministry failed to establish whether non-accredited civic groups, independent climate activists or international demonstrators will be permitted to organize public rallies within the Green Zone or wider urban areas in Antalya.
Minutes of the parliamentary committee debate on COP31 in Antalya:
Another point ahead of COP31 centers on which nongovernmental organizations will gain access to the United Nations-controlled Blue Zone, where civil society groups having ECOSOC consultative status directly engage with international delegates. Opposition lawmakers and environmental advocates warn that the Turkish government plans to use its administrative control over the national accreditation portal to prioritize pro-government NGOs while systematically restricting international and national opposition-leaning and independent groups.
The political alignment of these organizations extends far beyond traditional environmental mandates. Because ECOSOC accreditation covers a broad spectrum of human rights, legal reform and social justice causes, organizations without a primary focus on ecology also qualify for summit access. State authorities intend to leverage national security checks to filter out critical voices across all sectors, favoring state-aligned entities to project a sanitized image of domestic civil society to the international community.
While United Nations regulations technically guarantee entry to all recognized ECOSOC-accredited entities, the host country’s Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change acts as the gatekeeper for local delegate credentials and pavilion access. Independent organizations face heightened administrative scrutiny, potential visa delays for foreign partners and the threat of arbitrary denial under vague security classifications, a dynamic that advocates warn will stifle critical discourse on Turkey’s environmental and human rights record during the 15-day summit.
International civil society groups may also face operational risks under Turkish border enforcement standards. Passport control authorities maintain broad legal authority to deny entry, deport or turn back foreign activists at ports of entry under discretionary national security designations. Furthermore, Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code criminalizes insulting the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, carrying mandatory prison sentences that create serious legal exposure for foreign and domestic activists engaging in political satire, street theater or direct criticism of state leadership.
The restrictive framework contrasts with varying approaches taken by previous host nations. During COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, host governments restricted public demonstrations to heavily policed, remote designated areas away from main diplomatic proceedings. Conversely, during COP30 in Belém, Brazil, sustained pressure from international civil society forced host authorities to adopt a liberalized posture, permitting broad public marches and unhindered civic mobilizations across urban centers.
Security measures enforced during the July 7–8 NATO Summit in Ankara provided a preview of Turkey’s urban control strategy during major international gatherings. Ahead of the summit, security forces implemented sweeping measures that effectively depopulated central Ankara, closing major arteries and restricting public movement across the capital.
While the NATO gathering was confined to a restricted diplomatic contingent, COP31 in Antalya will draw tens of thousands of delegates, journalists, corporate representatives and grassroots activists. With local environmental figures remaining incarcerated in Sincan Prison and state officials refraining from offering statutory free speech guarantees, human rights monitors caution that Turkey’s approach threatens to restrict civic participation and public assembly during the global climate conference.
