Venezuela Supreme Court has staged effective coup: jurists’ group

FILE PHOTO: People walk in front of the building of Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) in Caracas, Venezuela June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Supreme Court has progressively dismantled the rule of law, becoming an instrument of President Nicolas Maduro’s government in what amounts to a coup against the constitutional order, an international human rights group charged on Tuesday.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said the top court had undermined human rights and infringed the Constitution through a series of rulings since December 2015.

In two rulings in March 2017, the Supreme Court of Justice “effectively claimed legislative powers for itself, depriving the National Assembly of its Constitutional powers and granting sweeping arbitrary powers to the executive,” it said.

“These decisions amount to a coup d’état against the Constitutional order and have ushered in a new reign of arbitrary rule,” Sam Zarifi, ICJ Secretary General, said in a statement.

Judges on the Supreme Court are mainly from the ruling Socialist Party and/or former officials of the government of Maduro, the Geneva-based jurists’ group said.

Maduro denies accusations of a power grab, saying his actions – including the creation of an alternative constituent assembly that has granted itself lawmaking powers – are aimed at restoring peace after months of protests and violence.

Zarifi said the Supreme Court of Justice “has issued its decisions based on political considerations and ideological and party loyalties to the executive power”.

The ICJ report, “The Supreme Court of Justice: an instrument of executive power”, was issued on the sidelines of the U.N. Human Rights Council which began a three-week session on Monday.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said on Monday that Venezuelan security forces may have committed crimes against humanity against protesters and called for an international investigation.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Turkey purges hundreds of civil servants in latest decrees

Turkey purges hundreds of civil servants in latest decrees

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey dismissed hundreds civil servants and boosted President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers over the MIT national intelligence agency in two decrees published on Friday, the latest under emergency rule imposed after last year’s attempted coup.

Turkey has sacked or suspended more than 150,000 officials in purges since the failed putsch, while sending to jail pending trial some 50,000 people including soldiers, police, civil servants.

The crackdown has targeted people whom authorities say they suspect of links to the network of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for the coup.

Under the latest decrees, published in the government’s Official Gazette, more than 900 civil servants from ministries, public institutions and the military were dismissed. Those sacked included more than 100 academic personnel.

According to the decrees, the president’s permission will be required for the head of the MIT national intelligence agency to be investigated or to act as a witness. The president will also chair the national intelligence coordination board.

The Ankara chief prosecutor’s office will have the authority to investigate members of parliament for alleged crimes committed before or after an election, according to one of the measures.

One of the decrees also ordered the closure of the pro-Kurdish news agency Dihaber and two newspapers, all based in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. Since the coup, some 130 media outlets have been closed and around 150 journalists jailed.

Such measures have alarmed Turkey’s Western allies and rights groups, who say Erdogan has used the attempted coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent.

Some 250 people were killed in last year’s coup attempt, and the government has said the security measures are necessary because of the gravity of the threats facing Turkey. Gulen has condemned the coup attempt and denied involvement.

Under the decrees, Turkey will also recruit 32,000 staff for the police, along with 4,000 judges and prosecutors.

(Reporting by Ceyda Caglayan; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Robert Birsel and David Dolan)

Turkey asks Germany to extradite coup suspect: foreign minister

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speaks during a news conference after an extraordinary meeting of the OIC Executive Committee in Istanbul, Turkey, August 1, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey has asked Germany to extradite a theology lecturer suspected of playing a major role in last year’s failed coup, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday.

Turkey sent a diplomatic note requesting the extradition of Adil Oksuz, who the government says was the “imam” of air force personnel who last year bombed parliament as part of the attempt to topple the government.

Authorities say Oksuz was detained near an Ankara air base hours after the coup attempt, only to be released by a judge two days later and has been on the run since. Turkish media have reported that he has been spotted in Frankfurt and Ulm and given a temporary residence permit by Germany’s Baden-Wurttemberg state.

“We sent a diplomatic note to Germany after the news regarding the presence in Germany of the FETO suspect Adil Oksuz, who is currently at large,” Cavusoglu told broadcaster TRT Haber in an interview.

FETO is the government’s label for supporters of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who authorities say was behind the coup attempt.

Video footage released after the coup attempt showed Oksuz and businessman Kemal Batmaz, another alleged ringleader in the coup attempt, arriving at Istanbul’s main airport two days before the attempted putsch.

Authorities say the men were returning from a visit to the United States where they allegedly met Gulen. The cleric, who denies involvement in the attempted putsch and has condemned it, has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

Batmaz remains in detention after his arrest in the immediate aftermath of the failed coup.

More than 50,000 people have been detained and 150,000 have been suspended in the crackdown that following the attempt. Journalists and opposition figures have also been targeted.

The scale of the crackdown has strained ties with some of Turkey’s allies, such as Germany, which have voiced concern that President Tayyip Erdogan may be using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent.

Ankara says such measures are justified by the threat to democracy now posed by Gulen, a former Erdogan supporter. More than 240 people were killed in the coup, most of them civilians.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Dirimcan Barut; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Turkey hunts more coup suspects, detains 30 for suspected PKK links

Turkey hunts more coup suspects, detains 30 for suspected PKK links

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish police have launched operations to track down 33 former staff of a national scientific research agency who are alleged to have been involved in last year’s failed coup attempt, the state-run Anadolu news agency said on Tuesday.

Anadolu said the suspects were alleged to have used ByLock, an encrypted messaging app which the government says was used by the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it accuses of orchestrating the abortive putsch in July 2016.

Gulen has denied involvement in the coup attempt.

Anadolu said police carried out operations in six provinces to find the 33 suspects from Turkey’s scientific research council TUBITAK.

Since the coup attempt some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the civil service and private sector and more than 50,000 have been detained for alleged links to the putsch.

The crackdown has alarmed rights groups and some of Turkey’s Western allies, who fear the government is using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent.

Security sources also said 30 people suspected of being linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were arrested on Tuesday in operations in the southeastern province of Sirnak.

The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union, and United States, has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, and the government has ramped up operations targeting the militants since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2015.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Turkish Supreme Military Council replaces land, air and navy commanders: media

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses academics during a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey July 26, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey decided on Wednesday to replace the heads of the army, air force and navy, local media reported, in the latest shake-up of the armed forces following last year’s failed coup.

The heads of the three branches will be replaced by other top members of the military, broadcaster NTV reported, following a meeting on Wednesday of the Supreme Military Council (YAS) chaired by Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

The changes are expected to be presented to President Tayyip Erdogan for approval and then announced to the public. Military officials were not immediately available for comment.

The commander of the Turkish Land Forces, Salih Zeki Colak, will be replaced by the commander of the gendarmerie forces Yasar Guler, broadcaster NTV reported. It said Naval commander Bulent Bostanoglu would be replaced by Adnan Ozbal, a vice-admiral.

Air Force commander Abidin Unal will be replaced by Hasan Kucukakyuz, currently commander of the Turkish Warfare Air Force, NTV said.

However, Wednesday’s meeting marks its top military body’s third gathering since last July’s failed coup attempt, when rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters in an attempt to topple the government.

Last year, the YAS reduced the length of some officers’ service, while also putting 586 colonels into retirement and extending the period of service of another 434 colonels by two years.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan)

Turkey opens trial of nearly 500 defendants over failed coup

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses academics during a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey July 26, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ANKARA (Reuters) – Nearly 500 suspects including army generals and pilots went on trial in Turkey on Tuesday, many of them accused of commanding last year’s failed coup attempt from an air base in the capital Ankara.

Families of those killed or wounded protested outside the courthouse, with some throwing hangman’s nooses or stones toward the defendants as they arrived under tight guard, shouting “murderers” and demanding that the death penalty be reinstated.

The government declared a state of emergency after the coup attempt and embarked on a large-scale crackdown that has alarmed Western allies of Ankara, a NATO member and candidate for European Union membership.

A total of 461 suspects jailed pending trial were brought to the courthouse, handcuffed and each flanked by two gendarme officers. Seven defendants are still on the run, while another 18 have been charged but not in jail.

The main defendant in the case is the 76-year-old U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose followers are blamed by the government for carrying out the failed coup. Gulen is being tried in absentia, and denies any role in the coup attempt.

Former air force commander Akin Ozturk and other defendants stationed at an air base northwest of the capital are accused of directing the coup and bombing government buildings, including parliament, and attempting to kill President Tayyip Erdogan.

If convicted, many of the 486 suspects risk life terms in prison for crimes that include violating the constitution, attempted assassination of the president, trying to abolish the republic and seizing military headquarters.

Several similar cases are under way in Turkey after the coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that resulted in some 250 deaths. Some 30 coup plotters were also killed.

The authorities declared a state of emergency following the coup and embarked on a crackdown on Gulen’s network and other opponents, arresting more than 50,000 people and purging over 150,000 people from public sector jobs.

Alarmed by the crackdown, Germany wants to suspend talks about modernizing the EU-Turkey customs union and wants measures implemented to raise financial pressure on Turkey to respect the rule of law, according to a draft paper seen by Reuters.

Erdogan’s government says the purge is needed to address Turkey’s security challenges and to root out what it says is a deeply embedded network of Gulen supporters – who were once Erdogan’s allies until they fell out in 2013.

The government says the coup-plotters used Akinci air base as their headquarters. Turkey’s military chief Hulusi Akar and other commanders were held captive for several hours at the base on the night of the coup.

(Reporting by Mert Ozkan; Writing by Ece Toksabay, editing by Alister Doyle)

Turkish court remands four opposition newspaper staff in custody, releases seven

Press freedom activists shout slogans during a demonstration in solidarity with the jailed members of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet outside a courthouse, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 28, 2017. The banner reads: "To hell with despotism. Long live freedom".REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Can Sezer

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A Turkish court ruled on Friday that four prominent members of an opposition newspaper must remain in detention but freed seven others for the duration of the trial, in a case seen by critics of President Tayyip Erdogan as an attack on free speech.

Since the first hearing in the case on Monday, hundreds of people have protested outside the central Istanbul court against the prosecution of 17 writers, executives and lawyers of the secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper.

The court remanded in custody the chairman of Cumhuriyet’s executive committee Akin Atalay, its chief editor Murat Sabuncu, and reporters Kadri Gursel and Ahmet Sik until the next hearing on Sept. 11, citing the gravity of the charges they face.

Chief judge Abdurrahman Orkun Dag freed seven others until the next hearing on “judicial probation” – meaning they cannot leave the country and must report regularly to a police station.

Turkish prosecutors are seeking up to 43 years in jail for the newspaper staff, who stand accused of targeting Erdogan through “asymmetric war methods”.

The 324-page indictment alleges Cumhuriyet was effectively taken over by the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed for a failed coup last July, and used to “veil the actions of terrorist groups”.

Cumhuriyet says the charges are “imaginary accusations and slander”.

“THEY’RE TELLING US TO KNEEL”

Gursel, along with Sabuncu and other senior staff, has been in pre-trial detention for more than 260 days.

“They’re telling us to kneel. Members of this rotten entity, with its gunmen and tyrants who lack honor, should know very well that until today I’ve only kneeled before my mother and father, and will never ever kneel before anybody else,” Sik told the crowded courtroom.

The court ordered an investigation into Sik, who once wrote a book critical of Gulen’s movement, for comments he made during his defense.

Social media posts comprised the bulk of evidence in the indictment, along with allegations that staff had been in contact with users of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by Gulen’s followers.

Following Friday’s ruling, lawyers marched outside the courthouse, chanting “right, law, justice”, as armored police vehicles and officers stood with tear gas and automatic weapons.

Former chief editor Can Dundar, who is living in Germany, is being tried in absentia, and the court said an arrest warrant for him remained in force.

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have complained of deteriorating human rights under Erdogan. In the crackdown since last July’s failed coup, 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial and some 150,000 detained or dismissed from their jobs.

In a joint statement, several international observers, including Reporters without Borders, called for the release of all 17 defendants, saying the case amounted to a “politically motivated effort to criminalize journalism”.

During Turkey’s crackdown, some 150 media outlets have been shut and around 160 journalists jailed, the Turkish Journalists’ Association says.

Authorities say the crackdown is justified by the gravity of the coup attempt, in which rogue soldiers tried to overthrow the government, killing 250 people, mostly civilians.

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Pro-Kurdish party launches protests against Turkish crackdown

Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers leave from a park after a party meeting in Diyarbakir, Turkey, July 25, 2017. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey’s pro-Kurdish parliamentary opposition launched three months of protests on Tuesday against a state crackdown which has seen dozens of lawmakers and mayors jailed over suspected links to militant separatists.

Hundreds of police, backed by armored vehicles and water cannon, imposed tight security at a park where 10 lawmakers of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) gathered in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country.

The HDP said police had initially allowed the protest, but later blocked off shaded areas of the park, leaving access only to an exposed paved area under a hot sun. It said in a statement only a few of its members were able to make their way inside.

“The blockade at this park is a sign of the real situation in Turkey… A political party that got 70 percent of votes (in Diyarbakir) cannot carry out its group meeting in the park,” HDP spokesman Osman Baydemir told reporters.

Ankara says the HDP is linked to the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decades-old insurgency and is deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union. The HDP denies the allegation.

Eleven HDP deputies have been jailed pending trial, more than 70 elected mayors from the HDP’s southeastern affiliate have been remanded in custody in terrorism-related investigations, and their municipalities taken over by state officials. Thousands of party members have also been arrested.

The HDP plans to hold round-the-clock, week-long protests led by its own lawmakers in Istanbul, the southeastern city of Van and the western port city of Izmir as part of the campaign.

“NO VIOLENCE, NO ANIMOSITY”

“Fascism can only be stopped through a democratic battle. This is what we’re saying. We will be here for seven days, 24 hours a day,” said Baydemir. “No violence, no animosity, we are just shouting that we have not given in to fascism.”

Baydmemir has said the HDP will hold protests until Nov. 4, the anniversary of the arrest of its co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag. Their arrests drew international condemnation and Yuksekdag has since been stripped of her parliamentary status and replaced as co-chairwoman.

The HDP protest call came two weeks after Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, the secularist CHP, completed a 25-day protest march from the capital Ankara to Istanbul over a state crackdown on suspected supporters of last year’s abortive military coup.

Turkish authorities have jailed, pending trial, more than 50,000 people and suspended or dismissed some 150,000 from their jobs since imposing emergency rule soon after the failed putsch.

(Writing by Daren Butler and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Gareth Jones)

In shadow of crackdown, Turkey commemorates failed coup

People wave Turkey's national flags as they arrive to attend a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the attempted coup at the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey July 15, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan and members of the opposition came together on Saturday to mark the anniversary of last year’s failed coup, in a moment of ceremonial unity all but overshadowed by the sweeping purges that have shaken society since.

The gathering in parliament was one of the first in a string of events planned through the weekend to commemorate the night of July 15, when thousands of unarmed civilians took to the streets to defy rogue soldiers who commandeered tanks and warplanes and bombed parliament in an attempt to seize power.

More than 240 people died before the coup was put down, a show of popular defiance that has likely ended decades of military interference in Turkish politics.

But along with a groundswell of nationalism, the coup’s greatest legacy has been the far-reaching crackdown.

Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the civil service and private sector and more than 50,000 detained for alleged links to the putsch. On Friday, the government said it had dismissed another 7,000 police, civil servants and academics for suspected links to the Muslim cleric it blames for the putsch.

“Our people did not leave sovereignty to their enemies and took hold of democracy to the death,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, as Erdogan and members of opposition parties looked on. “These monsters will surely receive the heaviest punishment they can within the law.”

Critics, including rights groups and some Western governments, say that Erdogan is using the state of emergency introduced after the coup to target opposition figures including rights activists, pro-Kurdish politicians and journalists.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was represented by its deputy chairman as the party’s two co-leaders are in jail – as are local members of rights group Amnesty International and nearly 160 journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

‘JUSTICE DESTROYED’

At the parliamentary ceremony, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) decried what he said was the erosion of democracy following the coup.

“This parliament, which withstood bombs, has been rendered obsolete and its authority removed,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, in a reference to an April referendum that Erdogan narrowly won, giving him sweeping executive powers.

“In the past year, justice has been destroyed. Instead of rapid normalization, a permanent state of emergency has been implemented.”

Kilicdaroglu this month finished a 25-day, 425 km (265 mile) “justice march” from Ankara to Istanbul, to protest the detention of a CHP lawmaker. The march, although largely ignored by the pro-government media, culminated in a massive rally in Istanbul against the crackdown.

In the run-up to the anniversary of July 15, Turkish media has been saturated by coverage from last year’s coup, with some channels showing almost constant footage of young men and even headscarved mothers facing down armed soldiers and tanks in Istanbul.

One man, 20-year-old Ismet Dogan, said he and his friends took to the streets of Istanbul the night of the coup after they heard the call from Erdogan to defy the soldiers. He was shot in both legs by soldiers, he told the website of broadcaster TRT Haber.

“My friends and I said, ‘We have one nation, if we are to die, let’s do it like men’,” he said. “Everyone who was there with me had come there to die. Nobody was afraid of death.”

(Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

A year after failed coup, crackdown shakes pillar of Turkish state

supporters of Erdogan after coup

By Yesim Dikmen and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Late one night in early February, Ibrahim Kaboglu learned that he had been targeted in the sweeping crackdown that followed Turkey’s failed coup a year ago.

“Sir, you are in the decree,” a colleague told the 67-year-old constitutional law professor by phone, referring to a list of 4,000 employees suspended from their jobs in a single swoop.

Five months later, as Turkey’s government prepares to commemorate thwarting the attempted overthrow of President Tayyip Erdogan, Kaboglu is still barred from his job at Marmara University and a year-long purge continues – hitting the judiciary particularly hard.

A quarter of judges and prosecutors have been sacked, leaving under-resourced courts swamped with tens of thousands of cases against people targeted in the crackdown, and weakening a pillar of constitutional authority in Turkey.

Kaboglu was half-expecting the call, he said, and he chose to carry on working into the night rather than wake up his wife and daughter. But the sense of inevitability could not soften the blow.

“For a jurist who has reached the last stage of his professional career, to be included in a … decree prepared in an anti-constitutional way, has an impact that is worse than death,” he said. “Because your whole life has passed in a struggle for the law.”

Around 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial and 150,000 people like Kaboglu suspended from work since the failed July 15, 2016 putsch, when rogue soldiers commandeered warplanes, tanks and helicopters, attacked parliament and tried to abduct Erdogan, killing 250 people.

The president’s ruling AK Party says the coup was planned by supporters of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen deeply embedded in Turkey’s institutions – the army, schools and courts – and only a massive purge could neutralize the threat.

But for those targeted in the crackdown the effect has been devastating. Stripped either of their liberty or their livelihood, they have little prospect of employment.

“You are deprived of all your rights. They say you cannot work (in Turkey) … You cannot work abroad either. My pension rights were taken away,” Kaboglu told Reuters.

The wider impact on the judiciary has been an erosion of legal safeguards, Kaboglu and other critics say, accusing Erdogan of using last year’s attempted coup as an excuse to trample on constitutional rights.

ONE-MAN RULE

Turkey’s main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, echoed that charge at a rally in Istanbul on Sunday, the biggest protest yet against the crackdown, when he described the state of emergency imposed last July as a second coup.

“All powers of the legislature, judiciary and executive have been concentrated in one person,” Kilicdaroglu told protesters.

“The independence and impartiality of the judiciary, which underpins democracy and the protection of all rights to life and property, must be ensured,” he said.

The crackdown, and a bitterly fought April referendum which granted greater presidential powers to Erdogan, have strained Turkey’s ties with the European Union and put its decades-old ambition to join the bloc in limbo.

Turkey’s justice ministry says “procedures” have been launched against 169,000 people. Some had used a messaging app favored by Gulen’s network, others worked at schools founded by his supporters or held accounts at a Gulen-linked bank.

Even ownership of one-dollar bills has been enough to raise suspicion. Authorities believe Gulen supporters, labeled the Gulenist Terrorist Organisation (FETO) by the government, used the notes to identify fellow members.

Arrested soldiers have been paraded in court in front of television cameras, crowds throwing nooses at them in a call to reinstate the death penalty for the coup plotters. Other detainees wait to learn their fate.

“They penetrated everywhere,” Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told Reuters, adding that eliminating the influence of Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan as he built up his power base, would take years.

“We are talking about a structure (going back) more than 40 years, hence it is not possible to cleanse it in one day,” Kurtulmus said.

Acknowledging that mistakes could be made in a wide-ranging purge, he said 33,000 people had been restored to their posts. People wrongly caught up could also apply to a commission which is starting to operate.

“This is a process that will continue for a long time. We have to continue very decisively,” he said, adding that this weekend’s commemoration of the failed coup would strengthen Turkey’s resolve to continue to confront those behind the coup.

“Neither the heroism nor the treachery should be allowed to be forgotten … Every one of our 80 million people, whatever their political view, should support our fight against FETO,” he said. “This cleansing will go on to the end.”

Erdogan has been reinforcing that message in a series of high profile ceremonies this week, which will culminate in a speech in Ankara at 2.34 am on Sunday, a year to the minute since parliament came under fire from the coup plotters.

For Kaboglu, who described himself as an enemy of the Gulenists when they were in alliance with Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, being “thrown in the same bag” as them in the post-coup crackdown was a cruel irony.

“Those who were affected were people like me who defend the law,” he said. “I defended human rights and the state of law 15 years ago and I defend them today. I will defend them in 10 years time if I live that long.”

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun and Ercan Gurses; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Giles Elgood)