Representatives from various human rights organisations gathered for a workshop in Büyükada Island, İstanbul on 2 July 2017, Sunday, for the purpose of exchanging knowledge and experience, and making human rights defending more reliable, healthier, more secure and more effective.

On Wednesday morning of 5 July 2017, at around 10.00 a.m. the meeting was raided by the police on grounds of a denunciation, and the participants were detained. Their names were Veli Acu, Özlem Dalkıran, Nalan Erkem, İdil Eser, Ali Gharavi, Günal Kurşun, Şeyhmus Özbekli, Peter Steudtner, Nejat Taştan, and İlknur Üstün. Those 10 human rights activists were brought before the court nearly two weeks later.

İdil Eser, Ali Ghavari, Peter Steudtner, Veli Acu, Günal Kurşun ve Özlem Dalkıran were arrested. Nalan Erkem, Şeyhmus Özbekli, Nejat Taştan, İlknur Üstün were released under judicial control. Right after their release, Nalan Erkem ve İlknur Üstün were arrested after an arrest warrant issued for them. The number of the arrested now became 10.

We would like to remind the Government and Judiciary organs of the following:

Adopted by the UN on 9 Dec. 1998, the Declaration on Human Right Defender arranges the rights of human rights defenders and duties as well as the obligations imposed upon the governments.

The Declaration emphasises that defending human rights itself is a human right also. Everybody has the right to protect human rights. Human rights defenders are the ones working individually or collectively in order to protect and develop human rights.
The EU also published the Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders.

Through basic conventions, governments have made commitment to acknowledging and protecting human rights defenders, and enabling their activities. It is obvious that human rights defenders are deprived of right to liberty and security as seen in the current case of their detentions.

Therefore, we demand the following:

The arrested human rights defenders be released immediately.

Those who committed false denunciation against those activists be revealed and investigated thoroughly.

The oppression on human rights defenders be ended.