Rights Defender Ceylan not Released

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Arrested while serving as Human Rights Association (İHD) Bitlis Branch Chair, Hasan Ceylan wasn’t released in the hearing held today (April 26). The next hearing will be held on June 7, 2018.

Ceylan was detained on March 19, 2017 and arrested on March 29, 2017 on charge of “being a member of an illegal organization”. He is still kept in Bitlis Prison.

İHD: Ceylan has life threatening health problems

In the statement issued by İHD Bitlis Branch, it was stated that Ceylan has health problems:

“Hasan Ceylan has many health problems including cardiovascular disease that threaten his life and he needs to be on medication”.

İHD Bitlis Branch demanded that Ceylan be released and tried without arrest ahead of the hearing today but this demand was rejected.

He was struggling for the mass graves to be opened

Hasan Ceylan had interviewed bianet about the mass graves in the district of Mutki, Bitlis.

A worker speaking on the condition of anonymity, who was working at Mutki Municipality as a digger operator in the 90s, had shown the location of the mass grave in the Mutki District Dump. The bodies were taken by diggers.  The municipality worker had said that he saw those who were killed in 1992, 1996 and 2003 were buried in the mass graves.

In his interview to bianet, Ceylan had said that there were three separate mass graves in the areas where the worker pointed, a grave was opened and bodies of 12 people were taken out as well as six others in another grave.

The Prisons Commission of the İHD had announced there were 1154 ill prisoners in prisons, 402 in critical condition.