Peace Bloc: Rights Defenders Must Immediately be Released

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The Peace Bloc has called for the release of rights defenders who were detained during a training meeting in Büyükada and then arrested.

It called on bar associations and legists with respect to the arrest of the six rights defenders:

“As the Peace Bloc, we deem this operation as a scandalous practice towards damaging social peace and we condemn it. This must be fixed as soon as possible and the rights defenders must be released. We call the institutions, especially bar associations and legists, favoring democracy and justice for duty and we urge them to take action against these judicial murders”.

Of the detained rights defenders, Özlem Dalkıran, İdil Eser, Günal Kurşun, Veli Acu, Ali Garawi and Peter Steudtner were arrested on July 18 and Nalan Erkem, İlknur Üstün, Nejat Taştan and Şeyhmus Özbekli were released on probation.

What happened?

Nalan Erkem and Özlem Dalkıran (Helsinki Citizens Assembly), İlknur Üstün (Women's Coalition), İdil Eser (Human Rights Watch Director to Turkey) and Veli Acu (Human Rights Agenda Association), Günal Kurşun (Human Rights Agenda Association), Nejat Taştan (Association for Monitoring Equal Rights), Şeyhmuz Özbekli (Rights Initiative), Ali Garawi (human rights trainer), and Peter Steudtner (German citizen human rights trainer) were taken into custody during a training workshop in Büyükada, one of the Prince Islands in İstanbul.

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

On July 18, Eser, Dalkıran, Kurşun, Acu, Garawi and Steudtner were arrested. Erkem, Üstün, Taştan and Özbekli were released on probation and international travel ban was imposed on them. (BK/TK)