German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel issued a fresh warning to Turkey Wednesday, saying Ankara's ambitions to join the European Union would remain blocked unless it improved its rights record. Kinkel said in a statement after Tuesday's sentencing to a jail term of human rights campaigner Akin Birdal. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement faxed to Reuters Wednesday 45 journalists were now held in Turkish prisons from 78 in July after the government issued a partial amnesty for imprisoned reporters in August. All but five of those released were set free after completing their sentences, the committee said. Germany condemns arrest of Turkish activist.
Turkey is a society that have never known democracy.
Esber Yagmurdereli, Lawyer. Blind since he was 10 years old. He served fourteen and a half years in prison, half of them in solitary confinement, and many of them in a variety of prisons, wherever the authorities thought appropriate. It was decided that he would serve 36 years. And his stubbornness in not giving way and continuing in his path earned him the attention and reaction of many another country.