Turkey editor, NGO staff held over NATO summit released

The editor-in-chief of a Turkish LGBTQ journal and environmental volunteers were among around a dozen people released Wednesday nearly a month after being arrested on terror-related charges ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara.

"I was released," Yildiz Tar, editor-in-chief of LGBTQ journal Kaos GL, wrote on his X account.

Turkish authorities launched a huge crackdown ahead of July 7-8 NATO summit in the capital, arresting a total of 4,412 people, ranging from journalists to civil society leaders.

Also on X, the TEMA Foundation, a leading Turkish environmental NGO, said early on Wednesday, 10 of its detained volunteers had been freed.

"We extend our thanks to everyone who did not abandon our volunteers during the legal process that has been ongoing for approximately one month," the foundation said.

Speaking to AFP, lawyer Suleyman Cetin said the detainees were released around 4:00 am.

"There was a major judicial error, which was rectified 29 days later," he said.

"People's freedoms should not be restricted so easily. How will the 29 days people spent in detention be compensated?"

Another 14 volunteers still remain under house arrest, with the lawyer hoping that ban would be lifted soon.

Burcu Arikan, spokeswoman of UMUT-SEN labour union was also released on Tuesday night, the syndicat said in a statement on X.

"While hundreds of people arrested due to NATO are still being held, we will not abandon our struggle against either NATO or its domestic collaborators," it said.

International rights advocates had denounced the arrests, with Human Rights Watch saying: "The misuse of terrorism laws to conduct mass arrests and silence people in the run-up to a NATO summit flies in the face of the founding values of the alliance."

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