Intervention from Didem Baydar Ünsal about Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal
Türkiye
On 11 June 2020, the online conference “Lawyers rights in peril: A discussion on the challenges to the integrity of the legal profession in Turkey amid the ongoing hungers strikes of the lawyers Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal” took place. During the conference, an intervention was made by lawyer and wife of Mr. Ünsal, Didem Baydar Ünsal.
The conference was organized by the Law Society of England and Wales, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights, the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project, Lawyers for Lawyers and the Izmir Bar Association. It brought together lawyers, representatives from various bar associations from Turkey and international lawyers organizations and rights defenders to explore and discuss the current situation of lawyers in Turkey and their increasing persecution.
the ongoing hunger strike of lawyers Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal from the Progressive Lawyers’ Association (Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği, ÇHD). In February 2020, both lawyers started their hunger strike in protest of the long jail sentences they have been sentenced to on charges of “membership of a terrorist organisation”. On 5 April 2020, Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal turned their hunger strike into a ‘death fast’. The intervention can be watched below.