The process against Peter Steudtner: How safe is Turkey for a human rights activist?

What is true for vacationers, should also apply to the other: that Turkey is a safe country. In the current Corona pandemic, Turkey wanted to show that it was f

The process against Peter Steudtner: How safe is Turkey for a human rights activist?

What is true for vacationers, should also apply to the other: that Turkey is a safe country. In the current Corona pandemic, Turkey wanted to show that it was for tourists from Germany, a "safe country" and is pushing for the lifting of the travel warning, says Markus Beeko, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International in Germany. The Turkey should be also, but for representatives of international human rights organisations, journalists, writers and lawyers, more calls for Beeko.

Rainer Hermann

editor in the policy.

F. A. Z.

As their safety is actually ordered, it will show in Istanbul on Friday, when the 35. Criminal court refers to the judgment in the "Buyukada-process", so in the process against eleven human rights activists that have been taken in July 2017 at a meeting of Amnesty International on the island of Büyükada fixed. A conviction would prompt a "significant struggle of the Turkish government to the international protection of human rights," says Beeko.

the process lasts for more than two years

In her final plea, has requested the office of the public Prosecutor for a period of six defendants to prison sentences of up to 15 years, and for five, among them the German Peter Steudtner, free of contradictions. The defenders of the last of the closing arguments on Friday. All eleven of the accused are walking free, even if the trial against her continues. Eight were released in October 2017 from custody. Taner Kilic, the honorary Chairman of the Turkish section of Amnesty International, was more than 400 days in detention.

before the release from custody, the prosecution had submitted in the beginning of October 2017 for all eleven an indictment. In it you tried to prove the allegation of support and membership in armed terrorist organisations. No engraving, but in the process, which now takes longer than two years, evidence presented. Some "evidence" together, but fell rapidly in.

the Prosecutor's office had based its allegations against Taner Kilic primarily on the accusation that he had downloaded of 2014 on his mobile phone, the App "Bylock" that members of the Gülen movement replaced should have. Two police reports and four independent forensic reports have confirmed, however, that there is any evidence of that. A secret anonymous witness has described the public Prosecutor's office the nearly 50-year-old Steudtner, wearing short clipped bright hairs, moreover, thus: "He is forty years old, has curly black hair and is a woman."

arbitrariness of the authorities is shown during a pandemic

In his closing argument the Prosecutor had demanded last November, a prison sentence of 15 years for Taner Kilic. He said but also, there is no evidence for the opposite Steudtner and other charges would be available to him. The same Prosecutor had, however, on the basis of this – well, lack of evidence – arranged in the summer of 2017 for you detention.

With voltage is expected on Friday whether the court will announce in the same composition, the judgments in which it last updated on February 19. Kicked to February, the first completion of pleadings of the defense together. Because the 35. The criminal court shall apply so far as a professional and relatively independent.

Date Of Update: 02 July 2020, 12:20