Peter Steudtner (born 1971 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

) is a German human rights activist and documentary filmer. On 5 July 2017 Steudtner, along with nine other human right defenders, was arrested by Turkish security forces. Before his arrest, he was invited by several human rights organization to give a speech at a conference on Büyükada island. He has been held in custody since then; the Turkish

justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

accuses him of having supported armed terrorist organisations. He was not permitted to receive mail whilst imprisoned in Turkey. Among the others arrested and facing charges of membership of terrorist organizations were Idil Eser (the head of Amnesty International Turkey), Ilknur Üstün (of the Women's Coalition), lawyer Günal Kursun and Veli Acu (both of the Human Rights Agenda Association), Özlem Dalkıran (of the Citizens' Assembly). Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cab ...

raised the question of arrests at a meeting with the Turkish president,

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to ...

at the G20 meeting in Hamburg. British

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minister

Alan Duncan Sir Alan James Carter Duncan (born 31 March 1957) is a British former Conservative Party politician who served as Minister of State for International Development from 2010 to 2014 and as Minister of State for Europe and the Americas from 20 ...

expressed his concern about the arrests. He said that the Turkish authorities are urged to "uphold international standards with regard to the rule of law, including the presumption of innocence." Steudtner and Ali Gharavi have both been released on the 3 November 2017, while other human rights activists were sentence on terror related charges in the same trial.

References

1971 births Living people German human rights activists {{Germany-activist-stub