I am dismayed to learn that Taner Kılıç, the Chair of Amnesty International in Turkey, was placed in detention on remand last night on unsubstantiated charges of membership of the Fethullah Gülen movement. I believe the detention of Mr Kılıç illustrates the arbitrariness inherent in the system established under the state of emergency, a serious problem which I addressed in a Memorandum published in October 2016.
It is difficult not to place Mr Kılıç's detention against the background of the worrying trend of judicial actions currently targeting human rights defenders and an increasingly wide range of other civil society actors in Turkey, on which I have expressed my concerns in another Memorandum published in February 2017.
I once more call on the Turkish authorities to revert to the rule of law and in the clear absence of credible evidence of his involvement in criminal activity, to immediately release Mr Kılıç.