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Prepared by the Youth Organizations Forum (GoFor), the “Which Youth?” report focuses on the protests that erupted on March 19, 2025, following the detention of Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. The protests led largely by young people, analyzed not only as a reaction to a single political event but also as a reflection of a decade of accumulated inequalities and youth-led struggles in Türkiye. The report documents the rights violations committed during this period using a media-based monitoring methodology and presents a thematic analysis of the underlying structural issues.
March 19: A Breaking Point in Youth’s Collective Memory
The report emphasizes that the March 19 protests were not isolated or spontaneous; rather, they should be understood as a broader social response rooted in long-standing grievances, such as the erosion of rights, increasing inequality, and political exclusion. The protests, held in cities like Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, and Eskişehir, with widespread participation from university students and young activists, brought renewed visibility to long-voiced demands for freedom of expression, electoral participation, university autonomy, and access to housing and education.
A Decade of Rights Violations as the Foundation
The report situates March 19 within a historical continuum of youth resistance over the last ten years. From the Gezi Uprising and the Boğaziçi University protests to the “We Can’t Find Shelter” movement and labor union efforts among young workers, these collective struggles have contributed to a shared memory that shaped the protests of 2025.
Media-Based Monitoring of Rights Violations
The report systematically compiles rights violations reported in the media between March 19 and April 18, 2025. Striking findings include:
- 1,418 detentions and hundreds of arrests: A significant majority of those detained or arrested were young people. Reports include serious allegations of physical abuse, strip searches, and ill-treatment during custody.
- Expelled from state-owned dormitories: Many students were removed from public dormitories and denied their right to housing due to their participation in protests. Some were subjected to formal investigations.
- Crackdowns on freedom of expression and the media: Authorities restricted access to social media accounts, detained journalists covering the protests, and enforced widespread censorship.
- Violations of education and healthcare rights in detention: Students faced obstacles accessing their coursework, and basic healthcare needs, including mental health services, were reportedly unmet.
- Delegitimizing youth demands through state discourse: The state labeled youth actions as “immoral,” “provocative,” or threats to “public order,” contributing to the criminalization and invisibilization of their rights claims.
Youth Demands vs. State Discourse
Drawing on the European Youth Forum’s rights-based policy framework, the report examines youth-specific violations in non-discrimination, housing, education, health, freedom of expression, participation, and freedom of association. It highlights how young people’s legitimate demands are often suppressed through securitized and exclusionary state narratives.
For instance, LGBTQ+ youth are stigmatized through “morality” discourses, while student-led housing campaigns are dismissed as provocations by “marginal groups.” Through thematic analysis, the report exposes the rhetorical tools used to marginalize youth voices and demands.
Highlighting the continuity of rights violations as identified in the UPR stakeholder report
The “Which Youth?” report also builds on contributions made by GoFor to Türkiye’s review under the 4th Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in November 2024. The violations documented particularly in housing, association, expression, and participation echo issues raised in the stakeholder report submitted by GoFor, which later informed recommendations by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Framing Struggle Through the Question: “Which Youth?”
This report challenges the portrayal of youth as passive or reactionary. It demonstrates how accumulated experiences of resistance stretching from Gezi to Boğaziçi, from housing campaigns to labor organizing, have shaped a robust collective memory. In this context, “Which Youth?” is not just a question, but a framework that interrogates whose rights are recognized, whose voices are heard, and how young people are rendered political subjects despite attempts to silence or erase them.
