Council of Europe: a young Turk arrested after his speech

A Turkish activist, young delegate of the Congress of the Council of Europe before which he had denounced a “democratic decline” in Turkey, was arrested on Tuesday when he arrived at Ankara airport, the Council of Europe and his lawyer announced on Wednesday. “ENES (Hocaogullari) was arrested. He is currently in Sincan prison, “near the capital Ankara, told theAFP His lawyer, Mahmut Seren, denouncing a “political arrest”. According to the lawyer, the 23 -year -old activist, was under an arrest warrant following an investigation opened by the Turkish justice, after his intervention at the end of March before the congress of local and regional powers, an organ of the Council of Europe based in Strasbourg (France).

The young man, very involved in the defense of human rights and LGBTQI+persons, had denounced a “democratic decline” in Turkey after the arrest a few days before the mayor of Opposition of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu. He had also accused Turkish police of “human rights violations” and “disproportionate brutality” with regard to demonstrators descended in the streets of the country.

“The arrest and the prosecution in question, based on words pronounced by a young delegate of the congress during one of his plenary sessions, flout the fundamental right to freedom of expression,” denounced in a statement Marc Cools, the president of the Congress of the Council of Europe, urging Turkish justice to lift the proceedings aimed at Enes Hocaogullari and to “free it immediately”. The Turkish authorities, accused of authoritarianism, had carried out nearly 2,000 arrests during the wave of protest triggered by the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, the most important in the country since 2013.

Most of the people arrested have been released since. Responsible for strengthening local democracy, the congress of local and regional powers has 306 members representing more than 130,000 local and regional communities of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe.