Turkish crackdown snares Amnesty International chair
The Turkish government has arrested and charged the local Amnesty International chair with membership in the so-called Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization even as the rights group monitors political repression in the country.
As the Turkish government keeps up the witch hunt against even its mildest critics, it seemed inevitable that it would shift its gaze to international rights groups monitoring the ballooning abuses across the country. Sure enough, on June 6, police detained the local chair of Amnesty International, Taner Kilic, together with 22 fellow lawyers over their alleged links to Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric whose disciples appear to have participated in large numbers in the failed July coup.
Days later, Kilic was charged with membership of the so-called Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization, or FETO, and remanded in pretrial detention.
The move triggered a fresh wave of indignation from Western governments — surprisingly, even from the United States.
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert noted in a statement that Kilic is “the latest in a series of respected human rights defenders, journalists, academics and activists detained in Turkey.” Nauert went on, “These detentions, often with little evidence or transparency, are an alarming trend.”
