Turkish police detained lawyer Alişan İnci on August 21, the second defense lawyer for government critic and Islamic preacher Alparslan Kuytul taken into custody within three days. Bilal İpek, another of Kuytul’s lawyers, was detained on August 19 and had his phone seized, reportedly after commenting on a social media post by a presidential aide that threatened his client. The detentions form part of an Adana prosecutor’s investigation into the Furkan movement involving simultaneous raids at 49 locations across six provinces, which produced 32 detentions on August 19 and grew to 62. Lawyer Ömer Hakseven called on the Union of Turkish Bar Associations to condemn the detentions, saying the rule of law cannot hold where lawyers are not safe, and reported that several clients were denied lawyers of their choice during police questioning on prosecutorial instruction. The pattern — detaining a defendant’s counsel as part of the same investigation — collapses the distinction between advocate and accused.

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