RADICAL voices across the world must unite to expose human rights abuses in Turkey and beyond, Britain’s democracy campaigners urged in an online rally.

The rally by Solidarity with the People Of Turkey (Spot) on Wednesday evening followed the mass arrests of Turkey’s opposition politicians, trade union leaders, journalists and artists on false terrorism claims.

Labour peer Christine Blower said that getting the British government to speak out against Turkey’s democratic backsliding “is no easy task” due to its geopolitical ties.

She said: “Wherever democracy is under attack, we must stand and call out what is happening on the ground.

“We must stand together for human and civil rights and for the rule of law.”

The rally coincided with mass protests across Istanbul, triggered by the detention of the city’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, as he was expected to be nominated as an opposition presidential candidate.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn sent his solidarity to the protesters.

“A democratic society means you have to speak up in defence and support of each other,” he said, speaking from Parliament where he had just voted against the government’s cut to welfare.

He highlighted the demonisation of refugees by the far-right in Britain and Europe as being the “cause of all social problems.”

“What causes those crises is an economic system that protects the very richest and expects the poorest to pay in order to achieve services,” he said.

“That’s why oppressive regimes always pick on trade unionists, they pick on journalists, writers, activists.

“That is exactly what is happening in Turkey.”

He thanked the Turkish-speaking community in London for bringing together these issues “in a very inclusive way,” saying: “Radical voices in the unions, in the political parties, in the communities have got to be coming together.

“Tonight is about a message of support and solidarity. Solidarity comes from expression, but also from demanding and achieving political change in our own societies.

“That’s why many of us in the independent group of MPs and groups all over the country are increasingly working very closely together to ensure that that coherent left alternative voice becomes louder and louder, more and more effective, and more and more powerful.

“That is the solidarity that we offer as well as the determination to make our governments and our society show real solidarity for the people in Turkey [facing] human rights abuses.”

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On the topic of international solidarity, Mr Corbyn also highlighted the developments in Gaza and the movement in Britain to end the arms trade with Israel.

“I think we all need to adopt the message from Nelson Mandela, ‘our freedom will never be complete until the Palestinian people are free,’ in our work and ensure that we continue to show total solidarity with the Palestinian people to bring about peace in the whole region.”

National Education Union’s Louise Regan highlighted her union’s involvement in supporting trade unions globally, saying: “As trade unionists here, we know that our job is to escalate and to take up our global trade union partners’ rights.

“No workers can be free until all workers are free.

“Our job is to join that international, global struggle, and we have to continue to do that on a much wider scale and to engage with our trade union partners here in the UK, but also across the world.”

She urged workers to ask their trade union branches to speak out against attacks on workers in Turkey and send their solidarity.

The full rally is available to watch on YouTube.