In partnership with IBAHRI, Redress and Human Rights Solidarity, The Arrested Lawyers Initiative organised a panel discussion on targeted human rights sanctions, focusing on Turkey. The panel was hosted by Baroness Kennedy of Shaws in the UK Parliament.
MEPs, lawyers, human rights activists, academics and NGOs urged INTERPOL to suspend Turkey from the use of the SLTD database.
The Ankara Appeal Court will soon hear the case of lawyers who have previously been sentenced to a total of 150 years and served part of their respective sentences. If the appeal is dismissed, they will be facing spending another 3 to 6 years in prison.
The Kavala verdict of the European Court of Human Rights foreshadows the possibility of severe sanctions against Turkey. Kronos Haber talked to former First President of the Court of Cassation Prof. Dr. Sami Selçuk about the Kavala verdict and other issues on the agenda, we translated it into English.
A mobster who admitted to bribing chief prosecutor and police chiefs exposes deep rot in the Turkish judiciary.
Turkey Human Rights Blog looks at the extent of corruption in the Turkish judiciary, where corrupt judges and prosecutors are getting richer while cracking down on government critics. The latest example is the Okan Bato case.
The European Parliament adopted its annual Turkey report which found the state of democracy, rights and freedoms is deplorable and condemned systemic rights violations.
Although the anonymous witness mechanism has been abused for a long time by the Turkish authorities, the controversy surrounding Garson/The Waiter is scandalous even by the standards of the Turkish judiciary.
The case of lawyer Erol Altintas has highlighted the worrying practice of Turkish courts of using perfectly legal activities as grounds for criminal conviction, as well as ignoring relevant rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee, raising doubts about the fairness and independence of the country’s legal system.
Human rights expert Gökhan Günes explains that the zigzagging decisions of Turkey’s constitutional courts undermine legal certainty and foreseeability, and prevent full compliance with ECHR judgments.
Turkey’s Council of Judges and Prosecutors coerced the dismissed judges and prosecutors signing undated resignation letters by threatening them with social death.
Fethi Un, Murat Korkmaz and Metin Yucel were nothing but lawyers. They were unlawfully identified with their clients and targeted. They were arrested and whilst in detention treated -in late Fethi Un’s own words- “worse than an animal” and their lives were stolen. Let us hope that no other prisoner shares the same fate.
MP Mustafa Yeneroglu, former chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission, presented Turkey’s ‘report card’ on justice and the rule of law at the start of the new judicial year.
There has been an alarming increase in cases of torture and a continuing policy of impunity, according to the new report of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.
The replacements of judges in İmamoğlu’s appeal case casts a shadow over the upcoming election and underscores the persistent challenges Turkey faces in maintaining a judiciary free from political interference.