The head of Turkey’s largest human rights organization was detained on Friday, weeks after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced an ambitious rights reform plan.
The Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) said police raided co-chairperson Ozturk Turkdogan’s home and took him into custody.
While the grounds for his arrest are unknown, the IHD called it a “blatant violation of human rights” and demanded his immediate release.
The group was founded in 1986 and has more than 10,000 members today. It is Turkey’s foremost rights organization.
The IHD said the detention took place shortly after a speech in parliament by Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu that targeted the group.
“It is hard to imagine a valid and lawful reason” for Turkdogan’s detention, said Amnesty International’s Turkey campaigner Milena Buyum.
The Justice Ministry even held consultations with him on the new human rights action plan, she said.
The reforms announced by Erdogan this month were aimed at appeasing Western allies critical of Turkey’s record of repression.
“Seems the Human Rights Action Plan has become a human rights violation plan,” tweeted Emma Sinclair-Webb, a Turkey expert at Human Rights Watch.
Gulseren Yoleri, from the IHD’s Istanbul branch, said it wasn’t the first time that the group has faced oppression.
But the detention of its co-chief has a “symbolic meaning,” she said, adding that it’s also a “very clear expression” of how the government views human rights.