Activist from Turkey, of young age, detained following a critical address at the Council of Europe.
Enes Hocaogullari, a 23-year-old Turkish activist and advocate for human and LGBTQI rights, was detained upon arrival at Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport on 5 August 2025. The arrest occurred after Hocaogullari's speech at the Council of Europe in March, where he criticised "democratic setbacks" and "human rights violations" in Turkey.
According to court documents and reporting, Hocaogullari faces charges of "publicly disseminating misleading information" and "inciting hatred and enmity." His lawyer, Mahmut Seren, described the arrest as politically motivated, speaking to the AFP news agency.
The arrest drew immediate criticism from the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, which called for Hocaogullari's prompt release and described the detention as an unacceptable attack on a youth delegate exercising free speech. Human rights groups and European rights organisations have similarly condemned the arrest, citing it as part of wider concerns about democratic backsliding and a crackdown on dissent in Turkey.
Hocaogullari was already under investigation by Turkish authorities after his speech before the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in March. The arrest occurred shortly after the detention of popular opposition politician Ekrem Imamoglu on corruption charges, which sparked the largest wave of protests in Turkey since the Gezi protests in 2013.
Nearly 2,000 people were arrested during the protests, most of whom have since been released. Hocaogullari's speech also criticised the Turkish police for responding to Imamoglu's arrest with "disproportionate brutality" against protesters across the country.
Hocaogullari, a youth delegate of the body, spends half of the year abroad, according to his lawyer. The acronym LGBTQI stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people.
As the case unfolds, follow-up court dates and official statements will be monitored and updates provided.
The European Union, as a political entity, expressed concern over the arrest of Enes Hocaogullari, a human rights advocate, stating that the detention was an unacceptable attack on free speech. This event coincided with the wider concerns about democratic backsliding and a crackdown on dissent in Turkey, making headlines in general news, politics, crime-and-justice, and war-and-conflicts sections. The human rights groups and European rights organisations have also criticized Hocaogullari's arrest, linking it to the ongoing crackdown on LGBTQI activists.
