ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s state-run news agency says a court has charged nine lawyers, including prominent human rights defenders, with membership in an outlawed leftist militant group and ordered them arrested pending trial.
The lawyers were detained last week in a nationwide police crackdown on people allegedly linked to the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, which advocates a Marxist state and has claimed responsibility for a number of assassinations and bombings since the 1970s. The group has been relatively quiet in recent years.
Close to 70 other people also were detained for questioning in the sweep.
Anadolu Agency said the lawyers charged Monday include Selcuk Kozagacli, head of a lawyers’ association.
Human rights groups frequently accuse Turkey of using its broad-based anti-terrorism laws to jail activists and journalists and of curbing freedoms.
