ICAN stands in solidarity with WHRDs and HRDs detained in Turkey and urges the Turkish government to release them immediately

On 5 July, Turkish police raided a hotel where a human rights defenders seminar was being held and detained 8 human rights defenders and 2 experts. According to a statement by the Human Rights Joint Platform Initiative, the detained human rights defenders were taken to a police detention center and denied access to lawyers and families under an order of restriction issued by a public prosecutor.

The detained Human Rights Defenders are Nalan Erkem, İlknur Üstün, İdil Eser, Özlem Dalkıran, Günal Kurşun, Veli Acu, Şeyhmuz Özbekli, Nejat Taştan, Ali Gharavi and Peter Steudtner.

“The fact that families of the detained human rights defenders were not informed about their detention, that no information is made available due to order of restriction by the prosecutor, current conditions of this detention seem to go beyond standard state of emergency rules and regulations, and may amount to incommunicado detention,” the statement reads.

The seminar, which discussed techniques and methodologies for human rights defenders to better continue their work in defending human rights in times of states of emergency,  was part of a series organized by Human Rights Joint Platform founders and members, Human Rights Association, Human Rights Agenda Association, Amnesty International Turkey, and Citizens’ Assembly.

Turkey has been under a state of emergency since a failed coup attempt occurred last year, and a massive crackdown campaign has been underway since then.

In solidarity with the detained, the Women’s Coalition in Turkey also issued a statement stressing that these detentions “will neither deter them nor us from our struggle for women’s rights, because there is a long way to go in realisation of women’s rights in Turkey”.

Read the statement issued by the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition here