A view of Silivri Prison, near Istanbul,Turkey, 2014. Wikicommons/CeeGee. Some rights reserved.When the anti-terror squad raided the hotel on the island of Büyükada near Istanbul in the morning of July 5, the door of the meeting room was open. It was the fourth day of a training workshop, in which eight Turkish activists and two trainers from Germany participated. They were all arrested in the conference room of the hotel for their alleged association with an unspecified terrorist organization. The eight activists were Günal Kurşun (IHGD, Human Rights Agenda Association), İdil Eser (Amnesty International), İlknur Üstün (Women’s Coalition), Nalan Erkem (hYd, Citizens’ Assembly), Nejat Taştan (Association for Monitoring Equal Rights), Özlem Dalkıran (hYd, Citizens’ Assembly), Şeyhmus Özbekli (Rights Initiative) and Veli Acu (IHGD, Human Rights Agenda Association).
In addition, the two trainers Ali Ghavari and Peter Steudner were also taken into custody. The workshop was organized by IHOP (Joint Platform of Human Rights NGOs). The aim of the workshop was to increase awareness about the risks and threats that human rights defenders face, including information security and high-stress, and to develop the skills necessary to deal with them.[1]
The case reflects the sort of power relations and the particular conception of morality that dominate the so-called ‘New Turkey’– that is to say Turkey as it is re-constructed under Erdogan’s ‘strong-willed’ leadership. In this ‘New Turkey’ a form of violence that disregards human rights, even including the right to life and the manipulation of reality and morality to suit the interests of power holders, are part and parcel of everyday life.
