It should have been an ordinary day for İdil Eser and her colleagues, a routine workshop meeting in Istanbul. But police raided the building and arrested them. This happened just weeks after Amnesty Turkey's Chair, Taner Kılıç, was imprisoned.
Now stuck in jail, with a trial starting on 25 October, they all urgently need your help to free them.
İdil Eser is the Director of Amnesty Turkey, the others are colleagues and friends from Turkey and abroad. Their names are Özlem Dalkıran, Günal Kurşun, Veli Acu, Ali Gharavi, Peter Steudtner, Nalan Erkem and İlknur Üstün. Nejat Taştan and Şeyhmus Özbekli were released on bail, but still face trial.
They all face up to 15 years in prison accused of membership of a terrorist organisation, but none of them have done anything wrong. Turkey has jailed these people, just like they have jailed hundreds of journalists, fuelling the propaganda that human rights defenders are somehow dangerous and must be stopped. This is ridiculous and simply not true.
These people were peacefully protecting other people’s human rights in Turkey. Every day that they are detained, the people they spoke up for are left more vulnerable to the government’s sweeping crackdown.
We won’t stop until they’re all free. Join our call to release the human rights defenders and let
