ISTANBUL: Turkish police have detained 12 people including the local director of Amnesty International and other rights activists at a meeting on an island near Istanbul, media said on Thursday, in a move the rights group said was a “grotesque abuse of power.”
The detentions came less than a month after a court jailed pending trial the chairman of Amnesty’s Turkey branch, Taner Kilic, on charges of “membership of a terrorist organization” in a crackdown after an attempted coup in July 2016.
Amnesty Turkey Director Idil Eser and the others were taken to a police station on Wednesday evening after gathering at a hotel on Buyukada, just south of Turkey’s largest city, Hurriyet newspaper said. It was not clear why they were being held.
Amnesty called for the group’s release, saying it was “profoundly disturbed and outraged” at the detentions during a digital security and information management workshop.
Police were not available to comment. Amnesty said lawyers were told they would be given information at 2:30 p.m. (1130 GMT).
Among those detained with Eser were seven human rights defenders, two foreign trainers – a German and a Swedish national – as well as the hotel owner, Amnesty’s statement said.
“This is a grotesque abuse of power and highlights the precarious situation facing human rights activists in the country,” said Amnesty’s Secretary General Salil Shetty.
Since the failed putsch, Turkey has jailed more than 50,000 people pending trial and suspended or dismissed some 150,000, including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups.
The purge has also led to the closure of some 130 media outlets and jailing of 150 journalists and has worried Turkey’s Western allies and rights groups, who say President Tayyip Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, visiting Turkey to discuss Turkey’s accession progress, said the detentions would form part of his discussions in Ankara.
“The arrest of people, for instance last night’s arrests, we have to address these issues in friendship and mutual understanding. That’s why we are here,” he told reporters.
More than 240 people were killed in the coup attempt, and the government has said the security measures are necessary because of the gravity of the threats facing Turkey.
Amnesty Turkey’s chairman was detained in early June with 22 other lawyers over alleged links to the network of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the failed coup.
Turkey detains 12 at human rights meeting in island hotel — media
Turkey detains 12 at human rights meeting in island hotel — media
Rubio plans to update Netanyahu on US-Iran talks in Israel next week, officials say
- Trump is weighing whether to take military action against Tehran as the administration surges military resources to the region
- Dozens of US fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s and F-16s, have left bases in the US and Europe in recent days to head to the Middle East
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to travel to Israel next week to update Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the US-Iran nuclear talks, two Trump administration officials said.
Rubio is expected to meet with Netanyahu on Feb. 28, according to the officials, who spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity to detail travel plans that have not yet been announced.
The US and Iran recently have held two rounds of indirect talks over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Iran has agreed to draw up a written proposal to address US concerns that were raised during this week’s Geneva talks, according to another senior US official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That official said top national security officials gathered Wednesday in the White House Situation Room to discuss Iran, and were briefed that the “full forces” needed to carry out potential military action are expected to be in place by mid-March. The official did not provide a timeline for when Iran is expected to deliver its written response.
Officials from both the US and Iran had publicly offered some muted optimism about progress this week, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi even saying that “a new window has opened” for reaching an agreement.
“In some ways, it went well,” US Vice President JD Vance said about the talks in an interview Tuesday with Fox News Channel. “But in other ways, it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through.”
Netanyahu visited the White House last week to urge President Donald Trump to ensure that any deal about Iran’s nuclear program also include steps to neutralize Iran’s ballistic missile program and end its funding for proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Trump is weighing whether to take military action against Tehran as the administration surges military resources to the region, raising concerns that any attack could spiral into a larger conflict in the Middle East.
On Friday, Trump told reporters that a change in power in Iran “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He added, “For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking.”
The Trump administration has dispatched the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, from the Caribbean Sea to the Mideast to join a second carrier as well as other warships and military assets that the US has built up in the region.
Dozens of US fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s and F-16s, have left bases in the US and Europe in recent days to head to the Middle East, according to the Military Air Tracking Alliance, a team of about 30 open-source analysts that routinely analyzes military and government flight activity.
The team says it’s also tracked more than 85 fuel tankers and over 170 cargo planes heading into the region.
Steffan Watkins, a researcher based in Canada and a member of the MATA, said he also has spotted support aircraft like six of the military’s early-warning E-3 aircraft head to a base in Saudi Arabia.
Those aircraft are key for coordinating operations with a large number of aircraft. He says they were pulled from bases in Japan, Germany and Hawaii.
