ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th March, 2021) Turkey's Human Rights Association (IHD) said its co-chairman, Ozturk Turkdogan, was arrested in Ankara early on Friday.
"We have learnt with profound concern that ... Mr. Öztürk Türkdoğan was arrested by the police at his home in another 'Friday morning operation' that has become a routine practice in Turkey," the association said.
According to the IHD, the police raided Turkdogan's home in the early hours of the morning and took him into custody. The association's lawyers are currently working on obtaining more information about the case.
The IHD has decried the arrest as a "blatant violation of human rights" and demanded the chairman's immediate release.
"Mr. Türkdoğan's arrest that happened shortly after the Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu's address at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey's Plenary targeting IHD and not even two weeks after the announcement of the Human Rights Action Plan with flamboyant presentations cannot be accepted in any way," the official statement reads.
Turkdogan has served as the chairman of the IHD, the oldest and largest human rights organization in the country, since 2008. He is also a member of the founders committee of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.
Local media reported that, apart from Turkdogan, the police apprehended another 11 people during the Friday morning raid. Those allegedly include two members of the pro-Kurdish opposition party, the People's Democracy Party (HDP).
Earlier in the week, a Turkish prosecutor filed a case with the country's top court demanding the closure of the HDP following the conviction of the party's prominent legislator, Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, over a 2016 social media post containing "terrorist propaganda." The prosecution accuses the parliament's third largest party of colluding with a banned Kurdish militant movement, which the HDP firmly denies.
