Turkish court orders human rights activists held on terror charges
DW—Six people, including a German human rights consultant and an Amnesty director, will land behind bars in pre-trial detention. Four others were released. Amnesty called the decision a “crushing blow” for human rights.
The court did not provide details as to which terror organisation the six individuals allegedly were associated with when it made its ruling on Tuesday morning.
Four other activists whose fates had hung in the same balance were allowed to walk free.
Those detained include German national Peter Steudtner. A human rights trainer who has worked across Africa for such for organisations such as Bread for the World, Steudtner had only loose ties to Turkey, the website of the German weekly magazine Spiegel reported.
As one of the organisers of a human rights workshop that had been in progress for two day, he was taken away by police on July 5 when they stormed the hotel where the event was taking place. His co-organiser, the Swede Ali Gharavi, was also detained.
Idil Eser, the director of Amnesty InternationalTurkey,is another of the six activists who will remain in pretrial detention, which can last up to five years. She had also been previously detained on July 5 along with seven other Turkish activists and the two foreign consultants.
A month earlier,AmnestyTurkey’s board chairmanTaner Kilic,had been arrested on the same terror allegations.
‘Absurd’ charges
In a press release following the court’s decision,Amnesty blasted the ruling as a “crushing blow for rights in Turkey,” also describing the terror charges as “absurd.”
The organisation also rebuked international politicians for allegedly accommodating the Turkish government’s abuses: “Leaders around the world must stop biting their tongues and acting as if they can continue business as usual.”
The human rights activists are accused of supporting an “armed terrorist organisation” without being members,Andrew Gardner, a Turkey expert for Amnesty, told the DPA news agency.
At the G20 summit in Hamburg earlier this month,Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the digital security conference at which the activists had been arrested had “the character of a continuation” of last year’s July 15 failed coup, which Turkey blames on the “Hizmet” movement led by exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.
Steudtner’s family in Berlin reacted with indignation and alarm.“Peter has always fought for the peaceful and nonviolent resolution of conflicts,” his partner Magdalena Freundenschuss said.“The suggestion that he could have planned a coup is totally absurd.”
The 45-year-old Steudtner has become the latest German national to be held by Turkish authorities. Journalists Denis Yucel and Mesale Tolu are also behind bars indefinitely on similar allegations of links to terror groups. Crackdown on dissidents
In the lead up to Monday’s ruling, Amnesty’s Gardner had said either the court could decide to release the detainees ahead of their trials or “unfortunately, we could see the continuation of this process where the government has targeted all critical voices, in particular human rights civil society.”
“Turkey will be disgraced in the eyes of the world if these human rights defenders are put in prison for defending human rights,” Gardner said.
As part of the ongoing state of emergency - in place in Turkey since last year’s coup attempt and recently extended for a fourth time - dozens of civil society organisations and media outlets have been shuttered,and activists and journalists jailed.
More than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial and 150,000 dismissed or suspended from their jobs, including soldiers, police officers, teachers, judges and other public servants.
The United States has said it is “deeply concerned” by the wave of detentions.The EU has voted to freeze Turkey’s accession talks as a result of the ongoing purge.