Two distinguished lawyers, former president of the Turkish Human Rights Association (HRA) Ms Reyhan Yalcindag, and renowned defence lawyer Mr Ercan Kanar, as well as Prof Nazan Ustundag, of Boğaziçi University, will be visiting London to take part in this panel discussion. Following their participation in a conference at Queens University Belfast on the Kurdish question in Turkey, we are pleased to invite these lawyers, academics and activists to share their considerable expertise with us. The event has been called by Peace in Kurdistan campaign, CAMPACC and the Kurdish Federation UK, and will be chaired by Ali Has, solicitor advocate and member of the Law Society Human Rights Committee.
The expert panel will address the current crisis facing the legal profession in their country; the ongoing ‘KCK trials’ in which lawyers, politicians, journalists, and trade unionists are being criminalised and imprisoned in their thousands for their support of the Kurdish cause, and the use of anti-terror law to justify this repression of Kurdish civil society. They will also explore how these trials affect the current peace process and the further democratisation of the country within the context of an emerging historic breakthrough in the peace process.
The meeting, called "Mass trials of lawyers and politicians in Turkey –  Legal and political obstacles to the resolution of the Kurdish conflict" will be held on Thursday 18 April 2013, at 6.30pm, at Tooks Chambers, 81 Farringdon St.