Dozens of lawyers went on trial in Turkey yesterday on charges of links to Kurdish militants while foreign lawyers protested outside the court.
All 50 defendants – including 46 lawyers – had been involved in representing the jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) chief Abdullah Öcalan. Among the charges against them was passing orders from Öcalan to rebel fighters.
The trial, and others like it across Turkey, have led lawyers and civic groups to question the stated commitment of prime minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government to human rights and to criticise the widespread use of pre-trial detention.
“How bitterly funny is it that a country teaching democracy and human rights to Syria and the whole region is stealing the right to defence on its own soil,” Dogan Erbas, one of the lawyers on trial, told the court on behalf of other defendants.
A PKK founding member and leader, Öcalan (64) was captured in 1999 and is serving a life prison term. Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist group. – (Reuters)