Human Rights Association: A new ‘operation of intimidation’ against lawyers
* Photo: Twitter
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The Human Rights Association (İHD) has demanded the release of 60 legists and lawyers detained in the capital city of Ankara.
According to the written statement released by the İHD earlier today (September 15), as far as the association has been informed by the attorneys of the detained lawyers and the questions asked during the interrogations, "the lawyers have been equated with their clients and they are now facing the charges of being members of an illegal armed organization and aiding the organization just like their clients."
As part of an investigation launched by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, warrants were issued against 60 people, including 48 lawyers, 7 law apprentices, 3 discharged judges, 1 discharged prospective judge and 1 legist on September 11. The legal proceedings are still underway.
'They are prevented from practicing their profession'
"The operations of detention and arrest against lawyers have been gradually increasing in Turkey," the statement of the İHD has read against this backdrop and briefly added the following:
"The lawyers who represent political prisoners and the lawyers of Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) who do attorneyship for social cases have always been under the judicial pressure of political power holders and prevented from practicing their profession by detentions and arrests.
"After the attempted coup on July 15, 2016, hundreds of lawyers were taken into custody and arrested, especially by citing the Fethullah Gülen organization as the reason; hundreds of them have been convicted on charge of being members of an armed organization.
"With this recent operation of detentions, a new operation of intimidation against lawyers has been added to the political power holders' attempts to disable defense with the law of multiple bar associations.
"It is unacceptable that lawyers who represent the defense by practicing their profession are criminalized by using the Anti-Terror Law.
"It cannot be the subject of a penal investigation whom a lawyer will defend, what he or she talked with the client during the defense and what tactic he or she will follow while preparing the defense.
"A lawyer is free to choose his or her clients among the people that the state considers to be the most dangerous persons just as a lawyers is free to determine different strategies to defend that person on the condition that he or she abides by the professional ethics."
Concluding the statement, the İHD has made a call for the immediate release of detained lawyers in Ankara. (AS/SD)