ARBITRARY DETENTION AND ARREST
Throughout the week, prosecutors ordered the detention of at least 35 people over alleged links to the Gülen movement. In October 2020, a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) opinion said that widespread or systematic imprisonment of individuals with alleged links to the group may amount to crimes against humanity. Solidarity with OTHERS has compiled a detailed database to monitor the Gülen-linked mass detentions since a failed coup in July 2016.
28 August: Turkish police have detained 20 people across 11 provinces over their alleged links to the Gülen movement.
ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
No news has emerged of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, a former public sector worker who was sacked from his job by a decree-law during the 2016-2018 state of emergency and who was reported missing as of August 6, 2019, in what appears to be one of the latest cases in a string of suspected enforced disappearance of government critics since 2016.
FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY AND ASSOCIATION
26 August: In Soma, Manisa, gendarmerie forces detained at least 70 people, including the president of the Independent Mine Workers' Union, Gökay Çakır, during a sit-in protest by miners opposing the dismissal of workers for unionizing.
27 August: Fired CarrefourSA workers in Turkey were detained by police while protesting their dismissal, highlighting tensions between labor rights activists and law enforcement.
29 August: In Gaziantep, police intervened and detained 33 people, including BİRTEK-SEN President Mehmet Türkmen and Organizing Specialist Mazlum Ayçiçek, during a protest by Akcanlar Tekstil workers and BİRTEK-SEN against poor working conditions and tax deductions, after their planned press statement in front of a hotel was blocked by authorities.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND MEDIA
26 August: German state-owned international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) will take the conviction of its İstanbul office coordinator, journalist Bülent Mumay, to Turkey’s Constitutional Court after a lower appeals court refused to overturn his conviction.
27 August: A Turkish court has ordered an access ban on the X accounts of 82 people including prominent journalists and politicians, such as Kurdish politician Ertuğrul Kürkçü, journalists Amberin Zaman, on accusations that they are disseminating terrorist propaganda.
27 August: Demirören News Agency (DHA) reporter Zehra Baykal was physically assaulted and injured by a group reportedly related to the two individuals who went missing after setting out to sea in Yalova.
29 August: A 16-year-old girl in İstanbul faces charges for allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with a prosecutor demanding her conviction.
30 August: Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, former leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP), faces up to more than three years in prison since a court accepted an indictment accusing him of “praising crime and criminals” through public statements made over several years defending victims of the government crackdown on dissent.
KURDISH MINORITY
27 August: Two Kurdish inmates at Bafra Prison in Turkey’s Black Sea province of Samsun were put in solitary confinement for 11 days for writing poetry in Kurdish.
28 August: Thirty-one Kurdish inmates in İzmir prison, Turkey, have been banned from phone calls and visits for one month after commemorating the Kobani resistance with Kurdish songs and slogans.
REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS
28 August: A Palestinian student in Turkey is facing deportation after participating in a protest against trade relations with Israel, an action that has led Turkish authorities to initiate deportation proceedings.
28 August: During a metro ride in Istanbul, two men reportedly verbally and physically assaulted a Syrian child selling hairbands, with one of them also confronting a passenger who tried to intervene, questioning the passenger's nationality.
29 August: Hanan Mouselli Dagır, a Syrian-origin lawyer who recently became a member of the İzmir Bar Association, has been subjected to racist, discriminatory, and hateful remarks on social media.
TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT
29 August: Mehmet Emin Çam, a 72-year-old prisoner at the Beşiri T-Type Closed Prison in Batman, eastern Turkey, has reportedly been denied access to his essential medications for the past two weeks.
30 August: Tayfun Kahraman, a prisoner from the Gezi Trial in Turkey, is reportedly facing ill-treatment in detention, including being denied access to medical care and other basic rights, raising concerns about his well-being.
TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
27 August: A Syrian journalist, Bakr al-Kassem, working for several media outlets in an area of the country’s north controlled by Turkey-backed rebel factions has been detained by local authorities.
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