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Turkish Prosecutor Remands Human Rights Activists on Terror Charges

HeadlineJul 19, 2017

In Turkey, a state prosecutor on Tuesday remanded six human rights activists, including Amnesty International’s Turkish director, Idil Eser, on charges of membership in a terrorist group. The move means the activists could languish in jail for up to two years while awaiting a trial. The arrests came as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued to crack down on political opponents in the wake of a failed coup last year. This is Amnesty International’s director for Central Asia, John Dalhuisen, who called the detentions an “attack on the core of Turkish civil society.”

John Dalhuisen: “Let’s be under no mistake: There is no room in Turkey, of today, for an independent, critical civil society, independent, critical reporting. This is to be removed from Erdogan’s Turkey. Turkey is on a one-way track to a very dark and dangerous place right now.”

Meanwhile, the Turkish government unveiled a new school curriculum on Tuesday that excludes the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The head of the Turkish teachers’ union condemned the move, calling it an assault on science and secularism by President Erdogan’s government.

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