Turkey had detained 8 human rights defenders and 2 international trainers from a meeting they were holding in the Prince’s Islands in Istanbul on July 5. The detainees were referred to court 12 days after their detention and 6 of them were remanded in custody on charges of “aiding a terrorist organization”. The jailed activists are Amnesty International Turkey Director Idil Eser, Ali Gharawi from Sweden, Peter Steudtner from Germany, Veli Acu and Günal Kurşun of the Human Rights Agenda Association, and Özlem Dalkiran of the Citizen’s Assembly.

Two days ago, on Friday, Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for the other 4 human rights activists who were released on bail; Nalan Erkem of the Citizen’s Assembly, Şeyhmus Özbekli of the Rights Initiative, Nejat Taştan of the Equal Rights Watch Association and İlknur Üstün of the Women’s Coalition.

Nalan Erkem was therewith detained from her house in Istanbul Friday night and İlknur Üstün from her home in Ankara on Saturday. Both have been remanded in custody and sent to prison on Sunday.

In a statement on the detention orders against four human rights defenders on Saturday,  John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Director for Europe said: “With this cruel and retrograde step, Turkey has underlined its growing reputation as an indiscriminate jailer of civil society activists and a stranger to the rule of law.”

“These four people should never have been detained in the first place. Having already endured twelve days behind bars, they are forced to relive the ordeal yet again. Instead of dropping the baseless investigation, the Turkish authorities have raised their absurdity to fresh heights,” said John Dalhuisen.