Amnesty International has called on Turkish authorities to lift a 13-day ban on protests in Ankara and release people it described as arbitrarily detained ahead of the 36th NATO summit, as the number of people jailed pending trial in security operations before the event rose to 178, Turkish Minute reported.
The rights group issued the call after a province-wide ban on public assembly took effect Sunday in Ankara, where the summit will be held July 7 and 8.
The Ankara Governor’s Office announced on June 22 that all public assemblies would be banned from 12 a.m. on June 28 until 11:59 p.m. on July 10, citing national security and security measures linked to the NATO summit.
“The blanket ban on all protests in Ankara must be lifted and everyone arbitrarily detained in prison or under house arrest in connection with the NATO summit must be released,” Esther Major, Amnesty International’s deputy director of research for Europe, said in a statement.
Major called the ban “an excessive and unjustifiable attack” on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression.
She said Turkish authorities must protect the right to protest and stop using broad national security concerns to detain people without evidence of wrongdoing.
The governor’s office also cited the need to block unauthorized people and vehicles from entering areas designated as sensitive, including the summit venue, hotels where delegations will stay and routes to be used by delegations.
Amnesty’s statement referred to “more than 100 people” held in pretrial detention, based on the figures available when it was issued.
The figure later rose to 178 after more detainees were brought before a court, according to Turkish media and Human Rights Watch. Thirty-four others were put under house arrest, while six were released.
A total of 225 people were detained in operations launched with dawn raids on June 23 as part of what prosecutors described as a terrorism investigation.
Those detained included lawyers, academics, activists, journalists, students, trade union members and civil society representatives, according to rights groups and Turkish media.
Amnesty said pretrial detention is an exceptional measure and cannot be used to prevent people from exercising rights protected under international law, including freedom of peaceful assembly and expression.
The group also criticized NATO’s decision to deny accreditation to some journalists and media outlets from Turkey, calling it a blow to media freedom.
Amnesty urged NATO to reverse the decision and allow excluded journalists and outlets to cover the summit.
