A United Nations special rapporteur on Thursday condemned Turkey’s continued use of counterterrorism laws to imprison human rights lawyers and activists, calling it a violation of international human rights obligations.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, expressed alarm over the long-term detention of nine Turkish human rights lawyers and activists who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on what she described as “spurious terrorism-related charges.”
The group includes eight members of the Progressive Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD) who were arrested between 2018 and 2019 and convicted under Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law: Bark?n Timtik, Aytaç Ünsal, Özgür Y?lmaz, Behiç A?ç?, Engin Göko?lu, Süleyman Gökten, Selçuk Koza?açl? and Oya Aslan. They were sentenced to up to 13 years in prison in what has been widely criticized as an unfair trial, known as the ÇHD II trial.
Another arrestee, lawyer Turan Canpolat of the Malatya Bar Association, was imprisoned in 2016 based on the testimony of a client who later admitted he had been coerced. Canpolat was convicted of alleged links to the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, which Ankara accuses of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Gülen movement denies involvement in the coup.
Canpolat was detained in 2016 after responding to a police search at a client’s residence, only to find himself accused based on doctored evidence and coerced testimony. Despite the dismissal of related charges against others implicated in his case and the recanting of key testimony, he remains in prison. His conviction was based on his legal representation of companies later closed by emergency decrees after the coup, a move critics argue criminalizes standard legal work. International legal groups have denounced his imprisonment as a miscarriage of justice, calling for his release.
All nine lawyers are currently held in high-security prisons, and Canpolat has reportedly been kept in solitary confinement for nearly three years without a disciplinary order, a practice the UN expert found “extremely disturbing.”
UN special rapporteur ‘dismayed’ at Turkey’s jailing of rights lawyers under terrorism laws
