<\/p>\n
Taner Kili\u00e7 is a Turkish human rights lawyer and member of several human rights organizations. He is the\u00a0former president and co-founder of the Turkish section of Amnesty International.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>He was also from 2008 to 2014 the\u00a0president of the NGO Association for Solidarity with Refugees\u00a0<\/strong>(in Turkish, M\u00fcltecilerle Dayan\u0131\u015fma Derne\u011fi).<\/p>\n On July 3rd<\/sup>, 2020, Taner Kili\u00e7 was\u00a0sentenced to 6 years and 3 months imprisonment for \u201cmembership of a terrorist organization\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>in the B\u00fcy\u00fckada Trial. Alongside him, ten other human rights defenders were accused, three were also convicted. G\u00fcnal Kur\u015fun\u00a0(member of Amnesty International Turkey and employee of Human Rights Agenda Association)<\/em>, Idil Eser\u00a0(former director of Amnesty International Turkey)<\/em>\u00a0and \u00d6zlem Dalkiran\u00a0(active member of Citizens\u2019 Assembly and founding member of Amnesty International Turkey)\u00a0<\/em>were each sentenced to two years and one month in prison for\u00a0\u201cassistance to a terrorist organisation\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n In a\u00a0press release,\u00a0<\/a>Amnesty International condemned the decision as a\u00a0\u201ccrushing blow for human rights and for justice\u201d.\u00a0<\/em>On the eve of the hearing, the European Parliament\u2019s standing rapporteur for Turkey and the Chair of the Delegation to the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee\u00a0\u00a0said<\/a>:\u00a0\u201c<\/em>\u00a0The final hearing and sentence tomorrow of the emblematic \u2018B\u00fcy\u00fckada case\u2019 represents a decisive opportunity to clarify if Turkey abides by its international commitments and standards or if the country further moves apart from them.\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n Taner Kili\u00e7 was arrested on June 6th<\/sup>, 2017 on suspicion of involvement in the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. Awaiting the verdict, French Human Rights Ambassador Fran\u00e7ois Croquette and his German counterpart said,\u00a0\u201cThe controversial trial against Taner Kilic and the Istanbul 10 is a clear illustration of the pressure currently being put on Turkish civil society. [\u2026<\/em>]<\/em>\u00a0Legitimate commitment to human rights should never be considered a crime!\u00a0<\/em>\u201d According to the authorities, the lawyer is said to have downloaded a secure messaging application called ByLock. This messaging application is linked to Fethullah G\u00fclen\u2019s movement allegedly behind the coup. On 15 August 2018, Taner Kili\u00e7 was finally released pending trial.<\/p>\n After attending the hearing as an observer, Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International\u2019s researcher on Turkey, said:\u00a0\u201cToday, we have borne witness to a travesty of justice of spectacular proportions\u201d.\u00a0<\/em>He added:\u00a0\u201cThe court\u2019s verdict defies logic and exposes this three-year trial as the politically motivated attempt to silence independent voices\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n There was no committal order for Taner Kili\u00e7, who has already spent 14 months in detention. None of them will be detained pending the outcome of the appeal, which may take years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The OIAD strongly deplores<\/strong>\u00a0the Turkish authorities\u2019 criminalization of any human rights action.<\/p>\n The OIAD expresses its deep indignation\u00a0<\/strong>at this decision against a man who has dedicated his life and profession to the strengthening of human rights in Turkey.<\/p>\n The OIAD would like to remind the<\/strong>\u00a0Turkish authorities that under the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers (1990) :<\/p>\n \u201cLawyers like other citizens are entitled to freedom of expression, belief, association and assembly. In particular, they shall have the right to take part in public discussion of matters concerning the law, the administration of justice and the promotion and protection of human rights and to join or form local, national or international organizations and attend their meetings, without suffering professional restrictions by reason of their lawful action or their membership in a lawful organization. In exercising these rights, lawyers shall always conduct themselves in accordance with the law and the recognized standards and ethics of the legal profession\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Principle 23).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"listing_category":[61],"event_category":[],"service_category":[],"rental_category":[],"classifieds_category":[],"listing_feature":[],"region":[79,1915],"class_list":["post-10968","listing","type-listing","status-publish","hentry","listing_category-imprisoned","region-europe","region-turkiye"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/listing"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10968"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21610,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10968\/revisions\/21610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"listing_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing_category?post=10968"},{"taxonomy":"event_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_category?post=10968"},{"taxonomy":"service_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/service_category?post=10968"},{"taxonomy":"rental_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rental_category?post=10968"},{"taxonomy":"classifieds_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/classifieds_category?post=10968"},{"taxonomy":"listing_feature","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing_feature?post=10968"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=10968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}