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.
Turkish lawyer, Elif Hendekci, recounts her and her baby’s harrowing experience in prison. Imprisoned for providing legal aid to dissidents, Hendekci faces abuse and bureaucratic indifference in jail, struggling to protect her daughter amidst a system lacking empathy and basic human rights. Her story exposes political repression and inhumanity within Turkey’s incarceration system post-2016.
How does Turkey extend repression beyond borders? Dr. Emre Turkut draws striking parallels between Turkey’s transnational repression campaign and Nazi Germany’s ‘Night and Fog’ Regime.
Prominent Turkish judge (ret): judicial corruption transformed the judiciary into a lucrative industry, with judges acting as entrepreneurs.
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.
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.
The scandal in the Istanbul Courthouse, initially sparked by a letter from Istanbul Anatolian Chief Public Prosecutor İsmail Uçar to the Council of Judges and Prosecutors, has now intensified with Judge Erdinç Demet’s startling allegations against Bekir Altun, the Chief Justice of one of Istanbul’s two judicial districts.
After a fact-finding mission, the international coalition expressed profound concern over the ongoing harassment, arbitrary detention, and mistreatment of lawyers in Turkey.
Turkish lawyer Hendekci, imprisoned for 5 years, continues to fight for justice and calls for solidarity from the International Bar Association. Having been vindicated by the Constitutional Court, Hendekci is both pressing for accountability and fighting for an acquittal in her retrial.