In recent years, human rights violations have increasingly been reported in Turkey. Various international bodies and courts have confirmed this, sometimes even in very sharp terms. That is why we have taken the initiative to set up a “Turkey Tribunal.”

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Who are the initiative takers?

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Turkey Tribunal

Who are the initiative takers?

The Van Steenbrugge Advocaten (VSA) law firm is a Belgium-based firm that has handled various cases for Turkish citizens. For example, VSA lawyers defended Ismet Özçelik and Turgay Karaman before the UN Human Rights Committee, inter alia on the grounds of kidnapping and unlawful deprivation of liberty (CCPR/C/125/D/2980/2017, March 2019).

  • Prof. Dr. Johan Vande Lanotte

    The initiative is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Johan Vande Lanotte, professor at the University of Ghent, who at the end of the 1980s was one of the first in Flanders region in Belgium to give a fully-fledged Human Rights course.
  • “Torture and abduction have become a systematic way of acting by the Turkish government to shut down any oppositional voice. The use of abduction and torture is so systematic that it now will have to be considered as a crime against humanity as defined in international law."
Academic History
Prof. Dr. Johan Vande Lanotte
The initiative is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Johan Vande Lanotte, professor at the University of Ghent, who at the end of the 1980s was one of the first in Flanders region in Belgium to give a fully-fledged Human Rights course.
  • 1986: PhD in Law at Ghent University
  • 1988 – present: Associate professor of constitutional law and human rights at the University of Ghent
  • Deputy Prime Minister in federal governments in Belgium (1995-1998, 1999-2003, 2003-2005, 2011-2014)
  • 2006: Appointed Minister of State by King Albert II
  • 2018 – present: Senior Legal Counsel at the office of Van Steenbrugge Advocaten