The Turkish government must get to the bottom of the murder four years ago of husband and wife Ali Ulvi and Aysin Büyüknohutçu, environmental defenders who challenged illegal polluting stone quarries in an agricultural area near Antalya, a UN expert said today.
The Council of Europe said on Friday it would begin infringement proceedings against member state Turkey in November if philanthropist Osman Kavala is not released from prison in accordance with a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling.
Osman Kavala has been behind bars for 1413 days.
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), will meet tomorrow to hold its quarterly routine meeting. The measures that could be adopted due to Turkey’s failure to implement the Kavala judgement are also on the agenda of this meeting.
Turkish prosecutors are seeking between one and two years in jail for Ankara Bar Association executives over their criticism of homophobic statements made by Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) head Ali Erbaş in April 2020.
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
The Observatory has been informed about the sentencing and continued judicial harassment of Sevda Özbingöl Çelik, a human rights lawyer from the Urfa Bar Association and a member of the Human Rights Association (IHD) Urfa Branch and Urfa Bar’s Human Rights Center.
The Constitutional court has ruled that the arrest of İdil Eser, the former director of Amnesty Turkey, during the Büyükada trial caused a rights violation.
A UN expert today urged Turkey to release imprisoned human rights defenders and to stop using vague terrorism charges to turn people who stand up for human rights into criminals.
“I am greatly concerned that anti-terrorism laws are being used extensively to silence Turkish human rights defenders and disrupt their legitimate work defending human rights,” said Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.
The co-chair, members and former administrators of Turkey's Social Services and Health Workers' Union (SES) were detained in morning home raids on May 25, the union said on their social media accounts.
SES Co-Chair Selma Atabey, former board members and administrators Gönül Erden, Fikret Çalağan, Bedriye Yorgun, Belkıs Yurtsever, Rona Temelli, Erdal Turan and Ramazan Taş were detained, the union said.
A Turkish court has begun the retrial of the philanthropist Osman Kavala and 15 other people over their alleged role in nationwide protests in 2013, an expanding case that critics and even Ankara’s western allies say aims to quash dissent.
Kavala and eight others accused of organising the protests that began in Istanbul’s Gezi Park were acquitted of all charges in February 2020 but an appeal court overturned that ruling in January.
Human rights belong to everyone. But those who work to ensure that we can claim our rights are increasingly harassed, threatened, or jailed. In Turkey, the climate is particularly worrying. While the human rights record of the country has long been worrisome, since the 2016 coup attempt, all critical human rights defenders – irrespective of their views and background – find themselves at risk. Since then, thousands of government critics have been sacked, imprisoned, and charged with terror-related or libel crimes.