Turkey arrests activists

ISTANBUL: A Turkish court ordered the arrest of Amnesty International’s Turkey director and five other human rights workers in a sign of what rights advocates say is the government’s growing intolerance of critical voices.

The Amnesty director, Idil Eser, was detained along with nine other human rights advocates this month during a raid on a hotel where the group was attending a workshop.

The formal charges were not available, but Amnesty said the rights workers had been held on the “unfounded suspicion of ‘committing crime in the name of terrorist organisation without being a member”.