The house of Mr. Ethem Açıklan, who is the President of Human Rights Association or IHD Adana Branch, was raided and he was attempted to be detained. Mr. Açıkalın carries out human rights activities in the IHD Adana Branch in an effective manner. He carried out activities and prepared comprehensive reports about violations against children, who threw stone at police forces in social demonstrations and made these reports public.
Interestingly there is a UNICEF delegation in Adana to have some meetings about the situation of children. The delegation will meet Mr. Açıkalın, too. Of course, if he will not be detained until that time! He was not detained in this morning because he was not in the house when it was raided. IHD administrators informed the Security Directorate in Adana that Mr. Açıkalın would go to police department and give statement after he would have the UNICEF meeting.
Are human rights defenders unwanted men in Adana? It is not the first incident that Mr. Açıkalın faced. He was arrested on 23 January of the last year just because he was attended a press conference. Then he was released after several months. There are some investigations and court cases against him because of his statements about various issues. Human rights defenders, who prepare reports about human rights violations take place in Adana, are being attempted to associate being illegal also in this incident by the Security Directorate in Adana. However human rights defenders act in a manner of knowing the importance of activity that they carry out. They know legislation and law well.
The importance, value and functions of human rights defenders are highlighted in many supra-national human rights instruments such as OSCE Moscow Mechanism (1991), UN World Conference on Human Rights Vienna Declaration (1993) and UN Declaration of Human Rights Defenders (1998). These instruments states there should be facilitations and there should not be any threats to activities and some other guarantees by human rights defenders because of their endeavours to make human rights concept known. Improvement in democracy and law shall be accomplished protection and promotion of human rights.
Human If criticizing violations, which children were subjected to, publicly is an offence, we will go on to commit this offence.
We ask that Mr. Açıkalın should be released immediately after his statements will be taken.
Human Rights Association