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Court Action against Human Rights Defender in Turkey Date: 01-02-2000
PRESS RELEASE, 1 February, 2000

COURT ACTION AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER IN TURKEY

Nazmi Gür, human rights defender and general secretary of the internationally renowned Human Rights Association of Turkey (IHD) has been charged with the crime of assisting an armed gang organisation after publishing an article entitled "It is not hard to reach peace" on World Peace Day, 1 September 1999. He will appear before the State Security Court of Ankara on 3 February 2000.

Nazmi Gür faces between 3 and 7,5 years imprisonment for calling for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question and the 15 years armed conflict in the south east of Turkey. The court action follows the prosecution and subsequent imprisonment of Akin Birdal, former President of the IHD, last year. Several other court actions are launched in February against local branches of the IHD.

Turkey has recently been accepted as candidate to the European Union and the Turkish government promised to rapidly improve the human rights situation.

Former judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Mr Isi Foighel, will attend the the hearing on 3 February on behalf of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network. He will also represent the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.

The mission is co-ordinated with the Kurdish Human Rights Project, the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales, the Norwegian Bar Association, the Danish Centre for Human Rights and ICJ-Denmark, who will also send international trial observers to the hearing.

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1. Nazmi Gür is being prosecuted in accordance with articles 9 and 20 of Law No. 2045; article 36 and 169 of the Turkish Penal Code; and article 5 of Law No. 3713

2. Mr. Foighel was a judge at the European Court for Human Rights for 10 years.

3. The EMHRN is a network of fifty human rights organisation in the Euro-Mediterranean region devoted to the promotion and protection of human rights in the framework of the Barcelona process and the association agreements between the EU and its Mediterranean partners.
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