BERLIN (Sputnik) – German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel condemned on Sunday the demand of the Turkish prosecutor’s office to sentence activists of the Amnesty International human rights group to 15 years in jail.
“The demand for up to 15-year imprisonment is, from our point of view, absolutely inconceivable and unacceptable. In that context we, of course, immediately established a contact with the Turkish government,” Gabriel said, as quoted by the Foreign Ministry’s statement.
Gabriel vowed to do everything possible for releasing German citizens jailed in Turkey including Peter Steudtner, who is one of the arrested Amnesty International activists.
Amnesty International's Turkey Director Idil Eser alongside other 10 activists of the human rights organization was detained on the island of Buyukada off Istanbul's coast during a human rights conference on July 5. Ankara believes that the Amnesty International activists were associated with the movement of US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused by Turkey of masterminding the 2016 failed coup attempt.
