Congratulations

• Written by Harry Hummel, Netherlands Helsinki Committee-Executive Director

The human rights movement in Turkey has gone through an amazing and admirable development in the last twenty years. A range of innovative activities and tactics and new approaches have been started, tried out and perfected, contributing to support for individual victims as well as to structural reforms. Many human rights activists in Turkey have defied and continue to defy persecution and harassment. Turkish human rights organizations have become an example for human rights workers around the world.

The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey has been among the leading organizations in this development. It has played a great role in assisting persons subjected to torture, in the fight to eradicate torture and to the development of a just and dignifi ed society. I feel proud to be part of the same human rights movement the Foundation belongs to. My congratulations to the founders, the board and the staff of the Foundation on its 20th anniversary!

17 October 2010