Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent representations he has made to his Tukish counterpart on the issue of arrest warrants for 82 people, including former mayors and Members of the People’s Democratic Party and the Party’s Central Executive Board on the grounds of their having protested the siege of Kobane.
We have made it clear to Turkey that we expect the government to undertake any legal processes or actions against opposition parties, MPs, party officials, elected mayors, human rights defenders and journalists, fairly, transparently and with full respect for the rule of law. We will continue to engage closely with Turkey to encourage the full protection of fundamental rights of all peoples, regardless of their legitimate political affiliations, particularly in the area of freedom of expression and assembly, press freedom and the treatment of detainees. We will also continue to raise the human rights situation in Turkey in multilateral organisations, as we did at the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of Turkey in January 2020.