The chairman of Amnesty International Turkey has been arrested along with 22 other lawyers in the in the latest crackdown following a failed coup, the human rights group’s Secretary General Salil Shetty announced in a press release on Tuesday.
Police detained Taner Kılıç and 22 other lawyers in the Aegean coastal province of İzmir on suspicion of ties to the network of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, it said, citing a detention order.
"We are calling on the Turkish authorities to immediately release Taner Kılıç along with the other 22 lawyers, and drop all charges against them. Kılıç has a long and distinguished record of defending exactly the kind of freedoms that the Turkish authorities are now intent on trampling," Amnesty International's secretary general Salil Shetty said.
