Amnesty International has called for the immediate release of prominent human rights activist Nimet Tanrıkulu from a prison in Ankara where she has been held in pretrial detention since November 30, calling the terrorism-related charges against her “baseless.”
Tanrıkulu was among a group of politicians and activists detained in a police operation in late November, taken into custody at her home in İstanbul. After a short period of detention at a police station, she was transferred to the Ankara Police Department’s counterterrorism branch. Following four days in police custody, Tanrıkulu was put in pretrial detention at Ankara’s Sincan Prison on November 30 on accusations of “membership in a terrorist organization.”
In a letter dated December 16 addressing Gökhan Karaköse, the chief public prosecutor in Ankara, Amnesty International said it had examined the questions Tanrıkulu was asked during her interrogation and found no concrete evidence proving her links to an armed terrorist organization, namely the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging a bloody campaign in Turkey’s southeast since 1984 and is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.
Amnesty said it is deeply concerned that Tanrıkulu is being maliciously investigated due to her human rights work, accusing Turkish authorities of misusing counterterrorism investigations to silence those who defend human rights and recalling that Tanrıkulu has herself faced such malicious investigations on at least two past occasions.
“We call on you to request Nimet Tanrıkulu’s immediate release, unless prosecuting authorities are able to immediately provide an indictment that relies on unclassified material to demonstrate that she is guilty of an internationally recognisable offence,” Amnesty said in the letter.
Tanrıkulu is a prominent human rights defender and founding member of the Human Rights Association who has been active in Turkey’s human rights community for several decades including campaigning with the Saturday Mothers/People, a group of relatives of victims of enforced disappearances and their supporters for truth, justice and accountability.