Amnesty International Turkey’s Honorary President Taner Kilic was sentenced to six years and three months in prison for being a member of a terrorist organization, while the group’s former director, İdil Eser, was sentenced to two years and one month for helping to a terrorist organization.
Amnesty members Günal Kursun and Özlem Dalgiran also received two years and one month in prison for helping a terrorist group.
The human rights group denies all the charges, saying each accusation against its members has been “widely exposed as a baseless insult.”
Seven other defendants were acquitted. All 11 human rights activists were arrested and charged in the summer of 2017 on terrorism charges.
Defendants have the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal, which Amnesty Turkey tweeted that they will use. “As we said before the trial, we will not accept the sentencing of any of our friends. We will continue to pursue the case through the higher courts,” he said.
The four activists will not be jailed pending their appeals. The appeal process can take months or years.
“The court’s decision is staggering. During 12 court hearings, each and every allegation has been comprehensively exposed as a baseless insult. The court’s verdict defies logic and exposes this three-year trial as the politically motivated attempt to silence independent voices from day one, “added Gardner.
Kilic denies being a member of the organization, led by the American preacher Gulen, whom Turkey blames for planning the 2016 coup attempt in which around 250 people were killed.
The other 10 defendants, including former Amnesty International Turkey director Eser, were separately arrested at a hotel on the island of Büyükada, off the coast of Istanbul, where they were attending a digital security workshop.
According to Human Rights Watch, “terrorism charges have continued to be widely used” since the failed coup attempt and many terrorism trials in Turkey “lack convincing evidence of criminal activity.”
The practice of detaining persons accused of terrorist offenses in prolonged pre-trial detention “expressed concern about their use has become a form of summary punishment,” he said.
The verdict comes just a few months after prominent philanthropist Osman Kavala received a brief taste of freedom when he was acquitted during the 2013 protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, and then hours later arrested again for alleged links to the knock.
But the celebrations by the acquitted activists were short-lived, after prosecutors announced that Kavala would remain in detention.
Milena Buyum, a Turkish activist at Amnesty International, said in a statement that the decision smelled of “deliberate and calculated cruelty”.
Isil Sariyuce reported from Istanbul. CNN’s Sheena McKenzie and Emma Reynolds wrote from London. CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh and Yusuf Gezer contributed to this report.
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