The pressures on human rights defenders in Turkey are continuing increasingly. On February 3rd, the Diyarbakır Office of the Human Rights Association (İHD) was raided by the police and the Executive Board Member of İHD’s Diyarbakır Branch, Ferhat Berkpınar was taken into custody. This week, İHD Co-Chairs Eren Keskin and Öztürk Türkdoğan will appear before the court in two separate trials held in Dersim and Ankara.
The Human Rights Center of the Ankara Bar Association prepared a report regarding the allegations that some suspects were tortured in detention at the Ankara Security Directorate in the capital city.
In the last four months of 2021, at least 1,220 rights advocates faced different types of obstacles because of their activities, according to an information note by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV/HRFT).
These obstacles were defined as judicial harassment, administrative harassment, threat and retaliation.
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Responding to reports regarding today’s decision by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers to refer Turkey to the European Court of Human Rights for failing to release human rights defender Osman Kavala, Amnesty International’s Europe Director Nils Muižnieks said:
Businessperson and rights defender Osman Kavala, the only arrested defendant of the Gezi trial, has been been behind bars for 1,540 days as of today (January 18). At the hearing of the Gezi trial yesterday, he was not released by the İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court.
Having signed the declaration "We will not be a party to this crime" along with over a thousand academics in 2016, Academic for Peace Onur Can Taştan was discharged from the Faculty of Political Sciences of Ankara University by a Statutory Decree and his passport was cancelled.
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A Turkish court ruled Monday that prominent Turkish civil rights activist and philanthropist Osman Kavala should stay in prison, despite his more than four years in pre-trial detention.
The hearing took place as a Council of Europe deadline that could trigger infringement procedures looms. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2019 that Kavala’s rights had been violated and ordered his release. But Turkey has repeatedly refused to do so.
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The European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH) has filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) regarding the Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) case.
The Boğaziçi Students Assembly (BÖM) has stated that police officers try to persuade students detained during protests against the appointed rectors to become "informants."
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to ignore calls by Europe for the release of jailed businessman Osman Kavala and Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas.
The Council of Europe gave Turkey formal notice that it intends to ask the European Court of Human Rights to rule on whether Ankara has failed to fulfill its legal obligations by not releasing philanthropist and businessman Kavala.