Call for the Immediate Release of Aysel Tuğluk

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In ear­ly Decem­ber, we had already described the urgent need for her release for med­ical rea­sons in an arti­cle titled “Aysel Tuğluk and Lost Mem­o­ry”.

We also wrote that hers was not a unique case, and that it was typ­i­cal of that of dozens of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers whose health was pre­car­i­ous and required imme­di­ate releas­es. The same holds true for very old prisoners.

With the first 50 sig­na­tures col­lect­ed in Ger­many, here is the text of a peti­tion that has just been launched. Kedis­tan’s entire team joins in and invites all media with any inter­est what­so­ev­er in Turkey and the peo­ple that make up the coun­try, all defend­ers of fun­da­men­tal human rights, to sign this appeal, cur­rent­ly addressed to the new Ger­man gov­ern­ment since it is known to be heav­i­ly influ­en­tial on Euro­pean ori­en­ta­tions as per­tains to rela­tions with Turkey and its polit­i­cal regime.

We hope this appeal will rapid­ly extend to the future French pres­i­den­cy of the Euro­pean Coun­cil which will begin in Jan­u­ary 2022.

* Update of 4.1.2022: This wish hav­ing been shared by many, the ini­tia­tors of the peti­tion have updat­ed it in the terms below indi­cat­ed in blue.

You will also find on social net­works oth­er coor­di­nat­ed appeals we must relay.

Appeal to the Council of Europe, the European Union, and new German Government:

Clear sig­nals to Erdoğan!
Imme­di­ate release of Aysel Tuğluk!

Aysel Tuğluk, a human rights lawyer and a for­mer MP of Peo­ples’ Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (HDP), has now been in deten­tion in Turkey for five years.

Per­vin Bul­dan, MP, announced that Tuğluk is seri­ous­ly ill and has hard­ly spo­ken since the assaults of a nation­al­is­tic mob sur­round­ing her moth­er’s funer­al. The Fac­ul­ty of Foren­sic Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kocaeli has stat­ed that Aysel Tuğluk is no longer fit to be impris­oned due to chron­ic and pro­gres­sive Alzheimer’s demen­tia and should be released from prison imme­di­ate­ly. This was reject­ed by the respon­si­ble İst­anb­ul Foren­sic Med­i­cine Insti­tute affil­i­at­ed to Min­istry of Justice.

Turk­ish-Ger­man Forum of Cul­ture calls on Turk­ish author­i­ties to put an end to sys­tem­at­ic repres­sion of oppo­si­tion fig­ures and the imme­di­ate release of Aysel Tuğluk and oth­er pris­on­ers, who have fall­en ill, as well as of all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Turkey like Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş, Osman Kavala, Gül­tan Kışanak and thou­sands of oth­ers, who are in jail only because of their polit­i­cal and social activities.

At the same time, we appeal to the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Union and to the new Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment of Ger­many to make the human­i­tar­i­an ori­en­ta­tion of its Turkey pol­i­cy clear on this spe­cial occa­sion, and to end to the appease­ment pol­i­cy of the pre­vi­ous coali­tions towards Pres­i­dent Erdoğan:

“Send a clear sig­nal that your gov­ern­ment will stand up for human rights and democ­ra­cy also in Turkey! Demand the imme­di­ate release of Aysel Tuğluk and oth­er pris­on­ers, who have fall­en ill, as well as thou­sands of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers like Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş, Osman Kavala and Gül­tan Kışanak!”

Through the EU Coun­cil Pres­i­den­cy, which France cur­rent­ly has tak­en over, EU must also put these issues on the agen­da and not pre­var­i­cate with Turk­ish author­i­ties over human rights. No agree­ment, be it on eco­nom­ic issues or migra­tion, can jus­ti­fy this.

For its part, the Coun­cil of Europe has already delib­er­at­ed on sev­er­al occa­sions con­cern­ing Turkey. How­ev­er, deci­sions announced by the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights (ECHR) are not imple­ment­ed by Turk­ish author­i­ties. The cred­i­bil­i­ty of the Coun­cil is at stake in enforc­ing them. Defend­ing the rights of all of these per­sons is an indis­pens­able first step.

Cologne/Berlin, Decem­ber 29, 2021

Ini­tial sign­er: Erk Acar­er, Ahmet Akgün, Lale Akgün, Rezan Aksoy, Kemal Aktaş, Ali Ata­lan, İmr­an Aya­ta, Nursel Aydoğan, Berivan Aymaz, Hayko Bağ­dat, Celal Başlangıç, Oya Bay­dar, Osman Bay­demir, Saadet Becerik­li, Lez­gin Botan, Anke Brunn, Ger­hard Brunn, Hasan Cemal, Cen­giz Çan­dar, Safter Çınar, Abdul­lah Demir­baş, Renan Demirkan, Zehra Doğan, Can Dün­dar, Dilek Dün­dar, Ragıp Duran, Aydın Engin, Aslı Erdoğan, Bern­hard von Grün­berg, Ülkü Gürkan-Schnei­der, Gen­cay Gür­soy, Baskın Oran, Naz Öke, Doğan Özgü­den, Tuba Hez­er Öztürk, Ley­la İmr­et, Sel­ma İrm­ak, Hasip Kaplan, Yıl­maz Kara­hasan, Atil­la Keskin, Bes­ime Kon­ca, Kad­er Konuk, Klaus Kost, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, Nafiz Özbek, Bedia Özgökçe, Ziya Pir, Anton Rüt­ten, Faysal Sarıyıldız, Her­bert Schmal­stieg, Nora Şeni, İnci Tuğsavul, Fer­hat Tunç, Gün­ter Wall­raff, Gülçin Wil­helm, Kemal Yalçın, Sibel Yiği­talp, Ahmet Yıldırım, Ayşe Yıldırım, Ragıp Zarakolu, Mazhar Zümrüt.

Please sup­port our peti­tion and join us in stand­ing up for the imme­di­ate release of Aysel Tuğluk and the rights of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, also in Turkey!

#FreeAy­sel­Tugluk, #Aysel­Tuğluk­İçin­Adalet

» To sign: follow the link

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