Three people were taken into custody as police carried out raids against members of the Youth Council of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM, formerly HEDEP) in Istanbul on Thursday.

According to reports from within the youth organisation, the unnamed members were taken to the Vatan police headquarters in Istanbul's Fatih district, which is notorious as a torture centre, following their detention. A confidentiality order was imposed on the case file, as well as a 24-hour ban on lawyers for the detainees. The reason given for the order is that “personal contact between the suspects in custody and lawyers, as well as the authorisation to examine the contents of the file or make copies of documents, may jeopardise the purpose of the investigation".

Measures such as bans on lawyers and confidentiality orders are common methods used by the police and judiciary to torpedo the defence, especially in proceedings with an alleged connection to terrorism. Experience shows that suspicions of terrorism against parties of the democratic Kurdish opposition and their youth structures are often fabricated and serve as a pretext for their criminalisation.