Urgent Action Outcome: Human Rights Defender Released From Prison

Human rights defender Enes Hocaoğulları was placed in arbitrary pre-trial detention on 5 August after being detained at Ankara Esenboğa Airport upon his return to Türkiye, due to comments he made in March during a speech at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. He was released from prison at the first hearing of his prosecution on 8 September 2025 but still faces charges and his prosecution is ongoing. As a condition of his release, Enes Hocaoğulları is required to present himself at a police station once a month. 

NO FURTHER ACTION IS REQUESTED. MANY THANKS TO ALL WHO SENT APPEALS.

Enes Hocaoğulları is a 23-year-old human rights defender and LGBTI+ rights activist. In a speech he made on 27 March at the Council of Europe, he addressed the crackdown on mass protests that had taken place in the preceding week, following the detention and imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. 

He returned to Türkiye on 5 August and was immediately placed in police custody, then remanded to pre-trail detention by an Ankara court the same day. His release at the first hearing followed tens of thousands of appeals sent as a result of the urgent action launched on 19 August 2025. His next hearing is scheduled for 23 February 2026.

Enes Hocaoğulları sent the following thank you message to Amnesty International after his release from prison: 

‘’My name is Enes Hocaoğulları, and I spent last month in prison for exercising my freedom of expression. Thanks to a successful set of international campaigns, I was released from pre-trial detention at my initial hearing. The fight is not over for my case, and definitely not over for freedom of expression more broadly. But it goes without saying that I’d be in a much different place without to the success of these campaigns – especially the one co-ordinated and operated by Amnesty International. You see, I’m one of the lucky human rights defenders. There are so many that have been facing and will continue to face reprisals for their activism – that receive little to no support. To remind you of the importance of the protection of human rights defenders and the effectiveness of such campaigns, I leave you these words from a Roman poet: who guards the guards? I ask you: who defends the rights of the human rights defenders?’’