Turkish police arrest two Kurdish lawyers in southeast of the country
North-Press Agency
Yesterday on Wednesday, the Turkish police arrested two Kurdish lawyers, after they raided the houses and offices of several lawyers in the city of Sanliurfa, in southeastern Turkey.
The "General Judiciary of the Republic" in Turkey started an investigation, and ordered the police of raiding the offices and houses of four lawyers, according to the Kurdish news agency Mezopotamia.
The four lawyers are members of Amed Office (Kurdish Bar Association) in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey. The two Kurdish lawyers were arrested by the Turkish police late last night.
The reason for arresting the Kurdish lawyers was their acceptance of the power of attorney by the families of some Kurdish politicians to defend them in the Turkish courts, according to Mezopotamia.
The human rights file in Turkey is undergoing its worst of times, in light of the ongoing arrests by the Turkish authorities against Erdogan's opponents.
Last February, the European Council called on the Turkish government to restore the judicial independence and to end the targeting and silencing of human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists, using administrative and judicial measures.
On the other hand, Turkey goes through a severe state of emergency, especially after the June election campaign, which was announced following the failed military coup in July 2016. Since then, Turkey has been witnessing media censorship atmosphere, and a year-long crackdown against the government's supposed enemies and critics.
According to the U.N. Global Report in 2018, several journalists, parliamentarians, jurists, and the presidential candidate of the HDP in the 2014 presidential election Selahattin Demirtas, were imprisoned.
Based on her visit to Turkey in July 2019, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the European Council Donia Mijatovic, reported: “The Turkish judiciary neglects the cases related to terrorism in unprecedented levels, even for the most basic principles of law, such as the presumption of innocence, no punishment without crime and irreversibility in committing crimes, or failure to judge the same proofs more than one time.”
The Turkish government ended the state of emergency nationwide in July 2018, but the state of emergency in Turkey continued under the name of fighting terrorism.
The Turkish authorities launched a campaign in 2016, which ended with the imprisonment of 80,000 people, who are still awaiting their trial, and the suspension of 150,000 soldiers and employees.