Six activists remain in Turkish prison

– A Turkish court yesterday ordered that six human rights activists, including Amnesty International’s Turkey director, remain in custody for aiding a terror group, in a case the NGO called a “travesty of justice”.

Turkey director Idil Eser was detained on July 5, along with seven other activists and two foreign trainers, during a digital security and information management workshop on Buyukada, an island south of Istanbul.

“Six were remanded in custody and four released on judicial control,” said Amnesty International’s Turkey researcher Andrew Gardner.

Prosecutors accuse them of “committing a crime in the name of a terror organisation without being a member,” he said.

Their detention sparked international alarm and amplified fears of declining freedom of expression under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The ruling came a day after the activists, who have not yet been put on trial or formally charged, gave statements to prosecutors for the first time since their detention.

Eight of those detained were Turkish rights activists, including Ilknur Ustun of the Women’s Coalition and Veli Acu of the Human Rights Agenda Association. Four of those have now been released, Gardner said.

Two foreigners – a German and a Swedish national who were leading the digital information workshop – remain in pre-trial detention.

Gardner said the court verdict was a “shocking travesty of justice”.

“It is politically motivated targeting not just of these six human rights defenders who have been remanded in pre-trial prison custody but it is taking aim at Turkey’s entire human rights movement,” he said. – AFP