AI is concerned for the safety of Yavuz Binbay, President of the Human Rights Association in Van, Eastern Turkey. He has continued to receive death threats purported to come from a group calling itself “Islami Cihad-B (Islami Yumruk)”, who have threatened him and many Kurdish parliamentarians, journalists and human rights workers. Yavuz Binbay is reportedly in poor health after an alleged attack by security officers who beat him almost to death in March this year; he was rescued by the local police chief. His shop was reportedly destroyed. At present he and 93 others are on trial; he is charged with unlawful assembly, demonstration, collective criminal damage, separatist propaganda and resisting arrest.
