A hospital in Amnesty’s office
Murat Çekiç, Director of Amnesty Turkey, on a sleepless week in Istanbul. As I write this, there are at least 10,000 people in Taksim Square, all protesting for 10,000 reasons. But here in our office,...
View ArticleStanding still is not a crime
An update from Andrew Gardner, Amnesty’s Turkey researcher in Istanbul On Monday night, one person went to Taksim Square and just stood still in a silent and symbolic protest against the recent...
View ArticleWelcome to WIRE July/August
WIRE celebrates people who stand up for human rights. This time, we meet three gay and lesbian activists from Kenya. They are supporting others and changing attitudes, despite being criminalized by...
View ArticleRead WIRE November/December and join the world’s biggest human rights event!
Every year, around Human Rights Day in December, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide send a message to someone they’ve never met. It’s a classic Amnesty technique: 52 years of human rights work...
View ArticleJustice for Gezi Park protestor a long way off as trial of police officers...
By Andrew Gardner, Turkey researcher at Amnesty International Today was a remarkable day in Turkey, this was a case which has faced hurdles every step of the way. As I sat in a packed courtroom in the...
View ArticleCan Turkey open a fresh chapter following the death of Berkin Elvan?
By Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International’s expert on Turkey Yesterday’s funeral of Berkin Elvan, the 15-year-old boy who died as a result of injuries sustained at a Gezi Park demonstration in Istanbul...
View ArticleTwitter is still blocked in Turkey, and battle lines over internet freedom...
By Andrew Gardner, Amnesty’s Turkey Researcher. The Twitter shutdown started at about 11pm on Thursday night. My telephone started to ring: had I heard that Twitter was blocked? There was confusion...
View ArticleTurkey Twitter trial
By Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International Turkey researcher On Monday 21 April, I will be in a courtroom in Izmir, observing the second hearing in the ‘Twitter case’ against 29 men and women who are...
View ArticleThe #IzmirTwitterCase: Ludicrous and baseless, yet set to continue
By Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International’s Turkey researcher I was in court on Monday 21 April to hear first hand the ludicrous decision to continue the trial of 29 young women and men in what has been...
View ArticleSyrians struggling to begin new lives in Istanbul
By Anna Shea, Legal Adviser on Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International. What struck me most when I met Zeinah (not her real name), a 29-year-old Syrian refugee in Turkey, were her warm...
View ArticleTweet now for student facing jail after Twitter use in Turkey
By Milena Buyum, Amnesty’s Turkey Campaigner On 2 June last year, Özge Ünlütezcan, a 24-year-old drama student, grabbed her phone to send out a series of tweets. Shortly after, she was stunned to be...
View ArticleInternet Governance Forum: A missed opportunity for human rights
By Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Deputy Director of Global Issues at Amnesty International. As you read this on your laptop, smart phone or tablet, 3,000 government leaders and representatives from companies and...
View ArticleLife and death in no man’s land between Syria and Turkey
By Neil Sammonds, Amnesty International’s Syria Researcher on the Turkey-Syria border A dust cloud from the US air strike drifts across the border from Kobani and blurs our view from the overlooking...
View Article
