The German human rights activist Peter Steudtner is spoken in Turkey of Terror charges. Also his Swedish colleague, Ali Gharavi received the acquittal, as the court ruled on Friday in Istanbul. Due to Corona-restrictions only a very limited number of spectators left in the courtroom. Numerous international observers and journalists had to remain outside. The procedure took place without Steudtner, who was able to leave for the trial in October 2017, after four months of detention.
Steudtner, his Swedish colleague, Ali Gharavi, and eight Turkish human rights activists were detained in early July, 2017 at a Workshop on the island of Büyükada off the coast of Istanbul under terrorist suspicion. To came process beginning in October of 2017, all free, Steudtner and Gharavi traveled. Kilic, whose case was later added to the indictment, was imprisoned for more than a year in the Western Turkish city of Izmir in custody.
The case Steudtner, as well as the detention of other German had charged from 2017, the Turkish-German relations are difficult. Amnesty International rated the procedures against the human rights activists as politically motivated and criticized the fact that no evidence against the eleven defendants were available. Among other things, the Amnesty has been accused of-honour Chairman of Kilic, to have the Messenger App Bylock on his mobile phone. The Turkish authorities believed that the perpetrators of the coup by then, so agreed had.
