Turkish Court Frees Human Rights Workers in Surprising Move
ISTANBUL
— An Istanbul court on Wednesday ordered the release of a group of
leading Turkish human rights campaigners and two foreign co-workers — a
German and a Swede — in a surprise softening in Turkey’s yearlong
prosecutions after a 2016 coup attempt.
The
decision, which came just before midnight, was an interim ruling, and
the case against the 11 human rights workers will continue. But eight of
the accused who were still being held in prison, including the two
foreign citizens, were ordered released by the judge. Two of the Turkish
citizens will remain under a travel ban, preventing them from traveling
abroad.
When 10 of the human rights leaders
were detained by the police in July as they were attending a workshop
at a resort hotel on Buyukada, one of the Princes’ Islands, near
Istanbul, Turkey’s nongovernmental and civil society organizations were
shaken.
The
charges against the workers — that they were aiding a terrorist
organization — were similar to those being used to detain tens of
thousands of Turkish citizens since the failed coup.
Fethullah Gulen,
an Islamist cleric living in the United States, has been blamed for
masterminding the coup attempt, but thousands of others, including
political opponents and critics of the government, have been imprisoned
in the widespread crackdown.
The
human rights workers included several senior Turkish representatives of
Amnesty International, two foreign consultants, a prominent human
rights lawyer and a project specialist for the United Nations World Food
Program. The chairman of Amnesty International Turkey, Taner Kilic, was
later included in the indictment.
In
a one-day hearing that lasted late into the night, some of the Turkish
citizens were charged with having links to followers of Mr. Gulen, or
people who used an encrypted application on their cellphone that
prosecutors say was employed by the coup plotters.
In
a sign of the government’s suspicion of nongovernmental organizations,
the indictment charged the detainees with organizing meetings and
activities to generate a social movement like the protests that took
place in Taksim Square in Istanbul in 2013.
In
addition, the foreign consultants were accused of giving training
sessions on how to conceal data from the police and the authorities.
The
defendants disputed the charges and pleaded not guilty. Some of them
claimed that the evidence was fabricated or just wrong. Most of them
refused the statutory offer to repent of their actions in order to
receive a more lenient sentence.
The
two foreigners — Peter Steudtner, 46, a German, and Ali Garawi, 50, a
Swede who also has American citizenship — were independent consultants
conducting training in stress relief and data security for the small
group of human rights campaigners.
Mr.
Steudtner’s detention ignited a diplomatic dispute between Germany and
Turkey. The Germans accused the Turks of taking hostages to pressure
Germany to hand over several wanted Turkish citizens.
Germany
announced a reorientation of its policy toward Turkey, calling for a
slowdown of talks for Turkey’s accession to the European Union and the
suspension of financial programs. It also cautioned Germans about
traveling to Turkey and warned investors against doing business there.
Mr.
Steudtner denied all charges. “I have always taken a nonviolent
approach” and have worked “within a legal framework,” he said at the
hearing, describing his career of 20 years in promoting peace and human
rights in developing countries. “I never worked with a terrorist
organization; it is completely against my personal convictions.”
He
said computer files that were listed in the indictment as evidence
appeared to have been fabricated, and one document contained nothing
more than simple instructions on how to transfer computer files from a
phone to a storage card.
Mr.
Garawi spoke emotionally of his bewilderment at the indictment and the
toll that three months of imprisonment had taken on his health.
A
refugee who fled Iran after his father was killed, Mr. Garawi said he
had spent 20 years working in nonprofit organizations to help others. “I
have devoted my life to alleviating the effects of war because of the
trauma I went through as a young child,” he said, “only to come here and
experience extreme pain for the last three and a half months.”
