Andrew Gardner

Ten Turkish human rights activists who were detained by police while attending a training workshop appeared before court officials in Istanbul on Monday to face possible charges or be released from custody, according to ABC News.

A Turkish court on July 18 ruled for the arrest of six human rights activists including Amnesty International's Turkey director for aiding a terror group.

Amnesty's Turkey director İdil Eser was detained on July 5 along with seven other activists and two foreign trainers during a digital security and information management workshop in Istanbul's Büyükada island.

An Istanbul court on July 18 ordered that six human rights activists including Amnesty International's Turkey director be arrested for aiding a terror group.
  
Turkey director İdil Eser was detained on July 5 along with seven other activists and two foreign trainers during a digital security and information management workshop on Büyükada, an island south of Istanbul.

The detention of 10 human rights defenders on July 5 in Turkey is a general message of intimidation given by the government to human rights organizations, Amnesty International's Turkey researcher Andrew Gardner told Deutsche Welle (DW) Turkish in an interview on July 13.

Turkey has extended for up to a week the detention of the country director of Amnesty International and nine other people held in a police raid, the rights group said on July 11. 

The outcome of the EU-Turkey summit in Brussels was "an attack on the right to seek asylum," according to Amnesty International (AI) Turkey researcher Andrew Gardner, who said the March 7 summit stands out as the EU's latest effort to "escape from its responsibilities" with regards to Syrian refugees. 

Turkish guards shoot at Syrian refugees stranded at the border on a daily basis, a researcher at Amnesty International has told RT.

According to Andrew Gardner, these cases are not isolated and the organization has been collecting evidence since 2014.

Amnesty International called on European Union leaders on Oct. 17 to put the rights of refugees above concerns to protect their borders, criticizing the EU's plan to offer aid and concessions to Turkey to stem the mass movement of asylum seekers to Europe.

Amnesty International?s Researcher for Turkey Andrew Gardner declared that a significant part of Syrians who have migrated to Turkey will not be able to go back to Syria, urging that the Turkish government should envisage their future development.

Amnesty International has accused Turkish security forces of using excessive force to police major street protests which erupted in Turkey?s southeast last year. A 22-page report released by Amnesty in Istanbul on July 7 was also critical of what it termed ?a lack of effective investigations into deaths and injuries that occurred.?