At least nine lawyers were detained on terror charges in early morning raids in the mainly Kurdish provinces of Urfa and Diyarbakir today, part of an ongoing campaign of repression targeting human rights defenders, said Abdullah Oncel, the president of the Urfa Bar Association.

Seven of the lawyers were detained in Urfa and two others in Diyarbakir. Three others — all from Diyarbakir — are being sought, Oncel told Al-Monitor. Several of the lawyers’ offices were ransacked by police and their homes raided, he added.

Bunyamin Seker, co-chair of the Jurists for Freedom Association, said a fourth lawyer from Sirnak, a heavily Kurdish province on the Iraqi border, was also being sought in connection with the case that is being overseen by the chief prosecutor of Urfa.

“We have been unable to find out the details or the exact reasoning of this operation but it’s obvious to us that with respect to lawyers, it’s to do with their work on abuses, particularly those that occur inside prison,” he told Al-Monitor. Another 12 individuals, none of them lawyers, are also believed to be facing charges in the case but their identities remain unknown and it remains unclear whether any have been detained, Seker said.