According to Kordpress, Human Rights Watch, in response to the Ankara Regional Court's decision to temporarily remove the leadership of the Republican People's Party, described this action as "a deep blow to the rule of law, democracy and human rights in Turkey" and warned of its consequences.

The organization stated that the ruling issued on May 21, 2026, under which Özgur Ozel and the leadership of the Republican People's Party were removed from their positions and the former leadership was returned to the party as chairman, is part of a broader effort by the government to weaken and eliminate Turkey's main opposition.

Benyamin Ward, the deputy of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia department, said: After the imprisonment of Akram Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and the presidential candidate of the People's Republican Party, it is now clear that the Turkish authorities intend to remove the current leadership of this party from the political scene.

Human Rights Watch also considered the intervention of the judicial system in canceling the party's internal congress and appointing a new leadership as an "unprecedented and illegitimate" action and emphasized that this decision could violate the right to freedom of association and the right to free and fair elections based on the European Convention on Human Rights.

Referring to the victory of the People's Republican Party in the local elections of March 2024 under the leadership of Özel, which overtook the Justice and Development Party for the first time in the last 22 years, this organization declared that the judicial process against the party's leadership has "obvious political motivation".