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TURKEY: Escalating Harassment of Human Rights Defenders Must End Now!

Ankara/ Brussels, 2 October 2015– EuroMed Rights is deeply dismayed to learn that executives from EuroMed Rights member organisation İHD are remanded in police custody after raids have been conducted against the IHD branch in the city of Siirt, southeast of Turkey, on September 30th.

Our organisation strongly condemns the ongoing crackdown against peaceful opposition voices and human rights defenders in Turkey under the pretext of counter-terrorism.

These arrests are contrary to international human rights instruments, such as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. We call on the Turkish Government to obey its international obligations and we utterly denounce such attempts to discourage citizens from engaging into civil society activities,’ said EuroMed Rights’ President, Michel Tubiana.

‘Those detained because they were solely exercising their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association must be immediately and unconditionally released and all charges against them must be dropped,’ added Tubiana.

Last Wednesday, the İHD’s Siirt office was raided and the police confiscated books, reports and other documents, as well as computers. This was part of a larger operation targeting the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the Democratic Regions’ Party (DBP) and several civil society organisations. This operation has led to the arrest of 11 people, including İHD executives and human rights defenders Zana Aksu, Azat Taş and Mirza Ekin who were arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Law (Law 3713 of April 1991). Journalists and members of the Kurdish political party DBP were also arrested.

This is only the latest event in a series of worrying attacks on dissenting voices. From 21 July to 30 August, the Turkish Government conducted massive arrest operations in over 30 cities in the country. 2686 people, mainly Kurdish and leftist opponents from HDP, were arrested and 352 of these people were imprisoned. In August, two İHD representatives, Mr Emirhan Uysal and Mr Deniz Sürgüt, a lawyer, were arrested in separate operations in Sırnak. Deniz Sürgüt remains in pre-trial detention to this day. The President of Turkey called for the parliamentary immunity of HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas and other leading members of the party to be lifted on 28 July, disturbingly justifying this request by stating that “anyone with links to terrorist organisations must pay the price for this”.