1/ I’ve been watching #Turkey’s Parliament TV for the last three days to follow the proposed changes to 11 laws in a package entitled Law on the Execution of Senteces and Security Measures. The opposition parties’ attempts to amend the proposals, however minute, are all rejected.

2/ The key criticism and problem with the proposed changes dubbed an amnesty, a description rejected by the governing AKP group, is the unequal application of the possibility of early release for tens of thousands. The proposals exclude those held in prisons pending their trials.

3/ There are an estimated 90,000 such prisoners who have not been convicted of any crime or who’s first instance convictions have not been confirmed on appeal.

In other words, they are yet to be proven guilty.

In other words, they are still innocent.

4/ The proposals also exclude those convicted under anti-terrorism laws. On #Turkey, these overly broad laws are routinely used to silence, imprison, prosecute non violent dissenting opinion. Several articles of the penal code criminalise ppl for activities that should not be.

5/ One article criminalises ‘assisting a terrorist organisation without being its member’ & punishes the individual ‘as if they are members’.

Hundreds including journalists, elected politicians, activists, lawyers, human rights & civil society actors are serving unjust sentences

6/ ...as a result of unfair trials. The concerns relating to these unjust laws and their arbitrary, punitive application have been raised time and again by human rights organisations like @amnesty and other international bodies. #Turkey has scores of rulings in the @ECHR_CEDH

7/ ...finding human rights violations. In two cases, that of @hdpdemirtas & #OsmanKavala, the Court found their prosecutions had been pursued for purposes other than prescribed by the law. They are both in prison, along w scores of others who shouldn’t be there in the first place

8/ They and tens of thousands among #Turkey’s shockingly high prison population (nearly 300,000) are now at risk of infection as #COVID19 rapidly spreads across #Turkey, the country with the fastest rate of growth in the world.

Please sign this appeal: https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/turkey-covid-19-prisoners-release/