Writing from prison, he wants Europe to re-engage with Turkey
I am serving an 18-year sentence and writing this column by hand from a maximum security prison. I am one of seven people recently imprisoned for allegedly organising anti-government protests in 2013 that started after plans to demolish Istanbul’s Gezi Park emerged. Regular readers of The Economist are probably familiar with accounts of deteriorating democratic standards in Turkey. My co-defendants include an architect, a city planner, several academics and civil-society personalities, a film producer and a lawyer. Amnesty International has chosen to classify us as prisoners of conscience. The European Court of Human Rights has already ruled that our judicial process has violated several rights enshrined in the European Charter for Human Rights, and that all results of the trial had to be vitiated.… Seguir leyendo »