On 21 January 2013, human rights lawyers Mr Selcuk Kozagacli and Ms Oya Aslan were arrested upon their arrival at Istanbul airport. Selcuk Kozagacli is General Chairperson of Cagdas Hukukcular Dernegi (Progressive Lawyers’ Association – CHD), and Oya Aslan is one of the organisation’s Executive Board members. Their arrest follows the detention of several other CHD lawyers on 18 January.
On the morning of 7 November 2012 new defamatory posters appeared throughout several areas of Mendoza in what appears to be an ongoing smear campaign to discredit several human rights lawyers.
On 8 March 2012, human rights defender and lawyer, Mr Umar Qandaqji, was arrested in the Homs neighbourhood of Al Inshaat. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Front Line welcomes the release of five human rights lawyers, Messrs Hussain 'Issa and Tamer Al-Jahmani, members of the Committee for the Defence of Prisoners of Conscience in Syria, and Sulayman Nahili, Nidal Al-Shaykh Hammoud and Muhammad Ibrahim 'Issa during the past two weeks. The five lawyers were arrested between 5 and 27 March 2011 as part of a widescale crackdown by the Syrian authorities against human rights defenders and pro-democracy and political activists across Syria in response to protests calling for democratic reforms and improved observance of civil and political rights.
Further Information
Front Line believes that the arrests were directly related to the lawyers' work in the defence of human rights.
On 22 October 2010, at approximately 11pm, the Head of the House Committee of Osh district, Mr Tolon Amataliev, reportedly attacked human rights defender Mr Umaraly Mamazhanov (ethnic Uzbek) at a public reception of the Advocacy Centre for Human Rights.
Human rights defenders in southern Kyrgyzstan have become victims of regular beatings, attacks, threats, and harassment. Human rights organisations and lawyers representing those arrested during the violence in June 2010 have been consistently harassed by the authorities and violently attacked by private individuals.
Front Line is concerned following reports of death threats against human rights lawyers, Ms Blanca Irene López and Ms Claudia Erazo, received on 26 March 2009. Blanca Irene López and Claudia Erazo work for the Corporación Jurídica Yira Castro – CJYC (Yira Castro Judicial Corporation), an organisation which defends the rights of displaced people and peasant communities.
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