Rights Defenders to Appear Before Judge After 113 Days

Click to read the article in Turkish/Kurdish

The date of the trial has been set for the 11 rights defenders facing prosecution due to a meeting in Büyükada in İstanbul on the security of rights defenders. The first hearing of the Büyükada trial will be held at Çağlayan Courthouse in İstanbul on October 25, 2017 at 10 a.m.

Speaking to bianet, one of the rights defenders’ attorneys, Hülya Gülbahar, denounced the trial date being delivered to the press before the lawyers and demanded that the rights defenders be immediately released.

“It is a positive development that the hearing date is soon. The rights defenders, who have been unlawfully detained on remand for over 100 days, must be released now. It is legally possible and necessary.

“The date of the trial being delivered to some media outlets before the lawyers proves this case has been carried out unlawfully by some unlawful circles. This is an open offense. We expect all human rights defenders and anyone who supports the human rights movement to attend the hearing”.

What happened?

On July 5, 10 rights advocates from various rights organizations were taken into custody during a training workshop with the topic "Protection and digital security of human rights advocates" in Büyükada, one of the Prince Islands in İstanbul. Nothing was heard from detained rights defenders for 30 hours.

It was later revealed that the detention warrant had only been issued five hours after the advocates had already been taken into custody.

On July 11, an additional seven days of detention were issued for the rights advocates.

On July 17, the rights advocates were sent to court for arrest on charges of "committing crimes on behalf of an illegal organization as non-members", and "being a member of an illegal organization".

On July 18, Eser, Dalkıran, Kurşun, Acu, Gharavi and Steudtner were arrested. Erkem, Üstün, Taştan and Özbekli were released on probation and an international travel ban was imposed on them.

On July 21, the prosecutor objected to the release of the four rights advocates and a detention warrant was issued for them. Detained while at their homes, Üstün and Erkem were arrested on July 23.

On July 25, Taştan and Özbekli were released on probation with travel bans. Özlem Dalkıran, Peter Steudtner, Ali Gharavi, Veli Acu, Günal Kurşun, İdil Eser and Nalan Erkem are still being kept in Silivri No. 9 F-type Prison and İlknur Üstün is behind bars in Sincan Closed Prison for Women.

According to the indictment submitted to İstanbul Heavy Criminal Court, rights advocate Taner Kılıç, an executive from Amnesty International Turkey Bureau faces from 7.5 to 15 years in prison on the charge of "Being a member of the armed Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ)", and other rights advocates are facing from 5 to 10 years in prison on the charge of "aiding an armed terrorist organization". (ÇT/TK)