The Chair of Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers wrote to the Turkish Ambassador in London yesterday expressing concern over the continued imprisonment of lawyer and human rights campaigner Muharrem Erbey.
The letter was written in response to PEN International’s call to action for Erbey, whose trial is set to continue with a hearing on the 13 January. Find out more about the campaign here.
Continue reading “Haldane Society writes to Turkish Embassy ahead of Erbey trial”
By Severin Weiland
30 November 2012
Translated from German original which was published by “Der Spiegel”.
It is a symbolic action: Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has awarded one of the most important prizes for lawyers to a man who has been held in custody for three years. The German FDP politician appealed to Ankara to end the imprisonment of Muharrem Erbey.
Berlin – Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has awarded the Ludovic-Trarieux Prize, one of the most important human rights prizes for lawyers, to Muharrem Erbey, who is in prison in Turkey. He has been in prison for three years, not until September was the trial against him begun. Continue reading “German Justice Minister awards Ludovic-Trarieux Prize to imprisoned Turkish lawyer Muharrem Erbey”
Bianet has reported that European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judge Isil Karakas has named Turkey as the country with the worst conditions regarding freedom of expression and press freedom. This year alone, the number of application to the ECHR has jumped from 6500 last year to 9000. As she says, ‘Arrest has become the norm, not the exception’. Read the full article below:
30 November 2011
ECHR judge Karakaş said that among all member states of the Council of Europe, Turkey was the country in the worst situation considering press freedom and freedom of expression. Turkey is the country with the most convictions ruled by the ECHR in this area. Continue reading “Turkey Takes Lead in Violations of Freedom of Expression”
By Muharrem Erbey, president of the Diyarbakir chapter of the Human Rights Association of Turkey, writing from Diyarbakir prison
30 August 2011
Voltaire said, “those who have lost freedom it lost it because they didn’t defend it.” The American Declaration of Independence of 1776, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789, and the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights all emphasize resistance to repression as a right and personal duty. Rights and freedoms can be restricted in any society; the issue is to what extent, and that extent mustn’t tip the scale of justice. Human rights defenders and people of conscience set out to fulfill their personal duties when repression in defense of power intensifies and destabilizes this scale. Continue reading “The democratic opening and the illusion of advanced democracy in Turkey”
