Turkish lawyer Barkin Timtik and her sister Ebru, whose death after a long hunger strike had sparked international outrage, were awarded the Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize on Thursday in Geneva.
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“
The Jury chose to remind the world of the martyrdom that lawyers in Turkey undergo today and not to dissociate in its homage and gratitude the two sisters Barkin and Ebru Timtik, one in prison for eighteen years and the other died from his hunger strike to demand a fair trial,
”Bordeaux lawyer Bertrand Favreau, founder of the prize and president of the jury who spoke in Geneva told AFP on Thursday.
"
Membership of a terrorist organization
"
Ebru Timtik was sentenced in 2019 to more than 13 years in prison for "
belonging to a terrorist organization
".
She had started a hunger strike in February but died in August 2020 at the age of 42, after 238 days of hunger strike.
His death sparked outrage around the world.
Her sister Barkin, 38, for her part was sentenced in March 2019 to 18 years and 9 months' imprisonment, accused by the Turkish courts of being close to the Revolutionary Front Party for the Liberation of the People (DHKP-C) whose she defended activists.
The DHKP-C is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey but also by the United States and the European Union.
The jury for this 25th Ludovic-Trarieux Prize, named after the founding lawyer of the Human Rights League in 1898, was made up of 27 European lawyers, representing the bars of Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Bordeaux , Brussels, Geneva, Luxembourg, Paris, Rome and Venice.
The prize, whose first winner in 1985 was Nelson Mandela, then imprisoned, aims to reward each year a lawyer who has illustrated "
by his work, his activity or his suffering, the defense of respect for human rights
".
The Port au Prince bar has been awarded the special mention of bar of the year 2020, said the organizers.
Last year, it had been attributed to a young lawyer of 33 years, defending the small peasants despoiled in Colombia, Rommel Duran Castellanos and in 2018 the Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, imprisoned after having notably defended Iranian women having taken off their veils. in public.
