Ankara - Turkey's leading human rights campaigner, Mr Akin Birdal, was wounded by unidentified attackers in his Ankara office yesterday, rights officials said.
Mr Birdal, head of the Human Rights Association, was hit in the chest and elsewhere by six bullets and was operated on at a local hospital.
Mr Birdal has been an outspoken critic of Turkey's human rights record and has frequently accused the state of conducting a "dirty war" against Kurdistan Workers' Party guerrillas.