After President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, Turkey was praised for its reconciliation policies. It also received positive feedback for its partial recognition of the past human rights violations against minority groups, mainly the Kurds. But things have rapidly changed in Turkey since the Syrian revolution and civil war started in 2011.

Over time, xenophobic and Turkish supremacist attacks on Syrian refugees in public spaces became a systematic problem in big cities such as multicultural Istanbul. The situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey worsened when the country started facing rising inflation rates, unemployment, and high levels of currency devaluation since 2021. In addition, some ultranationalist politicians have been channeling the anger towards the government for its economic mismanagement into an unparalleled wave of hostility toward the Syrian refugees. Consequently, small-scale altercations and verbal attacks have been replaced by violent attacks on Syrians in their living and working spaces.

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