Turkey: 'grotesque abuse of power,' says Amnesty

ADVERTISEMENT

Amnesty International has branded the detention of eleven people near Istanbul including its local director a “grotesque abuse of power”.

It comes under a month after a court ordered the arrest of the chairman of the organisation’s Turkey branch. Taner Kiliç is alleged to have been a member of a terrorist organisation. He was detained during a crackdown following last year’s military coup and remains in jail pending trial.

Amnesty Turkey Director Idil Eser, pictured above, and the others were removed from a meeting they were holding at a hotel on Buyukada, an island just south of Istanbul, and taken to various police stations across Istanbul on Wednesday evening, a lawyer for some of the detainees, Bahri Belen, told Reuters.