Zeynep Enlil, Chair of GPEAN (representative of TUPOB) brought this request by Turkish Chamber of City Planners to the GPEAN Council.
It relates to the case of Turkish colleagues who have been imprisoned and sentenced to 18 years because they objected to a project that intended to transform Gezi Park in the central part of Istanbul into a shopping mall and requested international support for their freedom.
This request for international support calling for their freedom was brought to the attention of AESOP ExCo and it was discussed at the last CoRep meeting with the advice to provide a link for signing the Call for Freedom of Tayfun Kahraman and Mücella Yapıcı along with an explanatory text, to be shared with AESOP community.
Here is the link (note: the English version might not be immediately visible on the screen, in that case a small scroll down will be necessary): https://www.spo.org.tr/detay.php?sube=0&tip=2&kod=12433
The Gezi prisoners Tayfun Kahraman, Mücella Yapıcı, and Can Atalay, have recently been awarded the 2023 European Prize for Architecture. The award ceremony took place on September 15th in Athens at the Acropolis. Additional information on the award https://www.chi-athenaeum.org/essays-page/ and https://globaldesignnews.com/interviews/.
