Gerçek News Agency
URGENT: musician (Grup Yorum) and political prisoner in Turkey in life danger
We are asking for urgent solidarity for Grup Yorum and Mustafa Koçak:
DEMAND JUSTICE FOR MUSTAFA KOCAK!
Mustafa Kocak was a young man (28) full of life.
An unjust verdict by a Turkish court changed his life and brought him on the brink of death. Even under torture, he didn’t accept to be an accomplice to the political crimes and games of the anti-terror police, who wanted him to give names and to testify against dissidents of the AKP. This is how he became the scapegoat for an action he didn’t commit. Another person within opposition was forced to sign a police protocol against Mustafa Kocak. The result is a severe life sentence (+42 years), which really means a whole life in prison.
The prosecution had nothing to present against him except of this police protocol. And the person who signed it might be the most unlucky man now, regretting what he did and pulling back his statement.. But the justice in Turkey obviously don’t want to get the law in force, since it just confirmed a decision of police and prosecution without asking for proofs and now rejecting proofs on favor of defense.His family and lawyers aren’t even allowed to see him im prison due to a Covid-19 visit ban.
The only way to get justice for Mustafa and many other people who live this injustice, is to raise your voice and send messages to the Justice Ministry in Turkey.
Please share on Twitter and Facebook:
#MustafaKocakMustLive
#MustafaKoçakYaşamalıdır
#FreeMustafaKocak
@abdulhamitgul
Make a call or write to the:
Ministry of Justice
06659 KIZILAY / ANKARA
telefon: +90 (0312) 417 77 70
Fax +90 (0312) 419 33 70
E-Mail: info@adalet.gov.tr
**
FREE THE SONGS OF GRUP YORUM – END REPRESSION AGAINST POPULAR ARTS AND ARTISTS!
This is before the bans of Grup Yorum concerts by the government in Turkey. Hundred thousands of people sang their songs together at Bakirköy square in Istanbul.
Ibrahim Gökcek is only asking for the abolition of concert bans and end of arbitrary imprisonment of the group members.
Singer of Grup Yorum, Helin Bölek lost her life on the 288th day of her death fast to defend her music.
Ibrahim Gökcek is as well on the brink of death with 303 days hunger protest.
His life can be saved with a political decision, which is also the only reason for this dramatical situation.
Please share on Twitter and Facebook:
Minister of Justice – Abdulhamit Gül:
#IbrahimGökcekMustLive #FreeGrupYorum #HelinBölekÖlümsüzdür @abdulhamitgul
Make a call or write to the:
Ministry of Justice
06659 KIZILAY / ANKARA
telefon: +90 (0312) 417 77 70
Fax +90 (0312) 419 33 70
E-Mail: info@adalet.gov.trVIDEOS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEWX84-md1E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6k2LXUl8C4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFtvrq6eXVA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SCZqOqm5YQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBe2fnIX7ow
LINKS ABOUT GRUP YORUM AND ALSO ARTICLES ON THE PRESS:
https://taz.de/Tod-der-Saengerin-Helin-Boelek/!5674681/?goMobile2=1586304000000
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/die-nachrichten-kulturnachrichten.2792.de.html
| Grup Yorum Solidarity Committee | |
 | T: + 49 163 994 452 918 https://freegrupyorum.wordpress.com/ freegrupyorum@gmail.com |
Hello,
We want to send you the link of a video about the ongoing death fast resistance in Turkey by artists of Grup Yorum and Mustafa Kocak. The video contains messages of the families of death fasters to the 3rd Rosa-Luxemburg-Conference in Austria (13-14 March), which had unfortunately to be cancelled.
The death fast is continuing under the hardest conditions, under massive attacks and the crisis and now even under emergency situation we face in the world.
The fascist politics in Turkey prohibits musicians to perform arts, put them on wanted lists and open trials relying on false statements under police torture and testimonies by police informants.
Grup Yorum members, gitarist of the band Ibrahim Gökcek and singer Helin Bölek continue death fast to get back their rights to perform and to demand end of attacks and raids to the cultural center.
Mustafa Kocak got life sentence due to a testimony of the police informant. He never had a trial with evidences, but only with claims and police protocols, made by a persons who was tortured by the police.
He wants only a fair trial.
All death fasters are now under threat of force feeding. They reached the last stage.
Their demands must be fulfilled, force feeding is torture and murder!
Freedom and Justice for Grup Yorum and Mustafa Kocak!
You can download the video here:https://www.transfernow.net/U7n34j032020
https://www.facebook.com/100011650689395/videos/1095960377468975/
Please raise your voice for Helin, Ibrahim and Mustafa!
INFOS: Twitter Free Grup Yorum Facebook: Anadolu Newsblog
Ayten Öztürk’s appeal for the pronouncement of sentence
After Ayten Öztürk was abducted from Lebanon and brought back to Turkey, she was tortured for six months in a secret place and then arrested. On 9 January at 1 p.m. the sentence will be pronounced. She will be tried before the criminal court. The people’s lawyers (Halkın Hukuk Bürosu) report about the hearing in the Caglayan court building: ” On 09.01.2020 (Thursday) there will be a hearing of our client Ayten Öztürk in the Caglayan court building. We invite everyone.”
She was arrested in Lebanon at Beirut airport on March 8, 2018 and taken to Turkey by the Turkish government in a private plane on March 13, 2018. A few minutes after she was arrested by “state officials” due to a big campaign by her comrades who had not heard from her for six months, she was left on an empty lot and then Ayten Öztürk was arrested by regular police on August 28, 2018.
In the statement made by the People’s Advocates, it was reported in the social media that Öztürk was arrested by the examining magistrate, while the torture statements made by Ayten Öztürk were not heard by the prosecutor and the judge either during the criminal prosecution or during the interrogation phase. The statements of her lawyers and herself were not recorded in the minutes”.
“Our client Ayten Öztürk was arrested at Lebanon airport on March 8 and taken to Turkey on March 13. Between March 13 and August 28, she was in the hands of the counter guerrillas. She was subjected to all kinds of torture because she refused to cooperate.”
Ayten Öztürk was subjected to all kinds of threats and torture and a total of 868 scars were found on her body!
During these six months she was tortured with electric shocks and traces of burns on her body, and her lawyers had informed her that she was also subjected to torture such as being under pressure to water, suspension and falaka. After 6 months of torture and psychological pressure, Ayten Öztürk had dropped to 40 kilos and could not survive!
Ayten Özürk, who appeared before the judge at the last hearing at the beginning of June last year, stated that the official date of detention in the anti-terrorism department in Ankara was 28 August 2018, but this did not reflect the truth: “I was taken into custody on 13 March 2018. After I had been tortured for about 6 months, I was handed over to the police at midnight in an open-air staging. I was subjected to severe torture, electrical, sexual and psychological torture. Due to my experiences, hundreds of wounds appeared on my body and I fell to 40 kilos “!
Violence against women, beatings and ill-treatment of women are published daily in our country. As for all women who have been subjected to violence, Ayten Öztürk should not remain silent in the face of these atrocities. We would like to emphasise that Ayten Öztürk will not attend the hearing on 9 January alone in order to punish those responsible for these atrocities, to implement the law and to find justice. To find justice!
Dogan Press Agency
MINSK DOCUMENTS
Stalın Means Belıef In Socıalısm! Stalın Means Insıstence In Socıalısm!
Stalın Means Determınatıon In Socıalısm!
Stalın Is The Name Of Vıctory Agaınst Imperıalısm! Stalın Is Defeat Of Imperıalısm!
Imperialism, especially within European left, organized counter-revolutionism within the frame of “anti-Stalinism”. Because rejecting Stalin meant rejecting the fundamental teachings of the revolution, the fundamental teachings of ML. That is, to refuse a revolution by force was to refuse war for the revolution, that is, to refuse war for the people’s power.
Hıstory Cannot Be Wrıtten Wıth Lıes: The Truths Are Revolutıonary!
Stalın And Socıalısm Cannot Be Smeared Wıth Lıes, Slander, And Demagoguery.
Individuals do not make history, history is not the work of people or heroes. History, is the history of class struggles. History is the work of the masses. If individuals and heroes are considered within this frame, then they will be given their true worth. In this framework, the Moscow Trials will have found their true meaning.
The Moscow Trıals Is The Clashıng Of Revolutıon And Counter-Revolutıon
With Lenin’s death, the prominent figures of that period, such as Zinoviev and Kamanev, who were repeatedly expelled from the party and forgiven after their self-criticization, but who were in a state of ambition to continue their counter-revolutionary treacherous attitude, did everything in their power to make Stalin stumble and fail.
These traitors, especially those who saw Lenin’s death as an opening, began to think, plan and look for opportunities where they could make Stalin and the other leaders fail. Not only did they look for opportunities, they organized and carried out treacherous actions.
-The Moscow Trials did not result in the execution of millions of people as alleged
The majority of the death sentences imposed were annulled and a very small portion of the sentences were imposed.
-It is not true that the sentences in the Soviet Union lasted a lifetime. According to the statistics of the Soviet courts of 1939, the number of sentences for up to five years was 95.9%, the sentences for five to ten years was 4%, and those with more than ten years was 0.1%. Historical facts are evident, a total of 140,000 were arrested and tried nationwide.
-The Moscow Trials were broadcasted live to the public, the press, foreign officials, on the radio, and newspapers to the entire Soviet people. Even the slightest mistreatment, as some have claimed, could have turned into a “democracy” cry from the imperialist bandits, but this didn’t work. Everything continued very clearly and openly. The Moscow trials and indictments have been translated into nearly 40 languages, and was broadcasted live to 17 radio channels around the world.
-Another lie is the claim that the people tried at the Moscow trial “had to accept all the charges imposed on them”. When we read the minutes of the trials, we see that the situation is very different. Because the defendants do not accept all the claims directed at them.
Trotsky, Zınovıev, Kamenev: Have Betrayed The Sovıet People And The Sovıet Unıon!
-Stalin handled and conducted the internal struggle in accordance with Marxist-Leninist principles. It is the result of this principled and determined struggle that the party clung around the views of Stalin and the Bolsheviks, and not the Trotskyists and Bukharins.
As a determined advocate and developer of the doctrine of the Leninist party, Stalin argued that his communist party would only be strengthened by clearing its ranks from revisionist elements.
-The Zinovievs, Kamenevs, Bukharins and their supporters were punished for trying to destroy the Soviet system in collaboration with these revisionist forces, the fascism of Hitler, and German imperialism. It’s not because they were Stalin’s “opponents” or had different views.
One of the defendants, Sergey Mrachkovsky, explained the purpose of the activities of this counter-revolutionary conspiratorial killer organization during 1932-1936;
“Hopes for the collapse of the policy of the Party must be regarded as doomed. The methods of struggle applied up to now have not produced positive results. Only one path of struggle remained, and that was the path of removing by violence the leaders of the Party and the Government.”
-Without these courts, if the traitors had not found their punishment, they would have been the blessing of fascism. Without these courts, the epic resistance against German fascism in the Second Imperialist Sharing war (WW2) would not have been born.
Massacres And Oppressıon Are The Work Of Imperıalısm
The Lıe Of Imperıalısm: The Katyn Massacre
One of the lies and defamation, perhaps the biggest, campaigns of the imperialists, Russian collaborators, and the fascists against the USSR and Stalin is the “Katyn massacre”.
Poland is a country that borders the Soviet Union. To protect the border, the imperialists want to open a gap between Poland and the Soviets. This is exactly why the “Katyn massacre” lie is being told.
-Allegedly, “10 – 25 thousand Polish officers, policemen and civilians taken prisoner by the Soviet army in 1940, were killed by a firing squad in the Katyn forest near Smolensk due to Stalin’s order.” In fact, this lie spread by imperialism and its collaborators today, was a failed campaign of lies and demagoguery by Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. Now the imperialists and their collaborators continue this lie from where Goebbels left off. However, when the lie of the fascist Goebbels that “Stalin ordered the massacre of 10 thousand people” was continued by the imperialists, the number was doubled and “22 thousand people were massacred”.
The “murder” of 10,000 Polish officers in Katyn has been cited in schools in Germany for decades as evidence for the Bolsheviks’ “bloodshed”. They poison young brains and try to rewrite history with lies. They compare the fascism of Hitler with the Soviets and say that just as Auschwitz is a crime against humanity committed by the fascism of Hitler, the “Katyn massacre” is a “crime against humanity” committed by Stalin and the Bolsheviks. Beyond doubt, for decades, bourgeois ideologies have had no issues with the fascism of Hitler. They maintained hostility towards Stalin and socialism by saying “Hitler is bad, but Stalin is also bad” and “fascism is bad but socialism is also bad.”
-Germany attacked the USSR in 1941. Fascist Germany’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who realized that they could not deal with the Red Army, spread this lie to bring the Soviet Union to a difficult position and to disrupt the anti-fascist coalition and to provoke the Polish against the Soviets. The victory of Stalingrad was the turning point of the war. At exactly this is point is where the Goebbels team started their campaign. In the posters that Goebbels prepared, it said “If the Soviets win, everywhere will be Katyn”.
-In September 1943, after Smolensk was cleared of the fascists, the Soviet government established two commissions to investigate the Katyn case.
-In January 1944, the Commission called many people to the scene of the incident to explain its findings, these people included foreign journalists and the daughter of the US ambassador. It was shown that those who were shot here were killed by the Nazis.
For example, the weapon used was the German pistol Walther. The rope used to tie their hands was made in Germany. Soon, the Soviet Armies recaptured the cemetery and further exploration of the Katyn forests was conducted. It was understood that the Polish officers were shot with German Gecko pistols, and that the dates of their murder turned out to be the fall of 1941, and not the 1940s as the fascists claimed.
When the graves were opened, it was seen that those massacred were buried with their clothes and the documents-IDs with the dates of 1941 were found in their pockets. This situation shows that these prisoners of war were alive until the Nazi occupation. In the autopsies, many technical and microscopic details were also reported. In 1944, a special commission of Forensic Medicine experts was established in Moscow in the autopsy of 925 bodies with the presence of “Western” expert observers. It was documented that Germany’s fascism was responsible for the Katyn massacre and this was announced to the world. The Katyn incident was discussed at the Nuremberg trials after the war ended and the USSR won again.
– But as American imperialism escalated its attacks on Stalin and socialism after the 1950s, this lie was reborn and brought back to the agenda.
Despite All the Attacks, Historical Investigations Document the Fact That the USSR Did Not Carry Out This Massacre.
All the Efforts of Imperialism and Their Collaborators Are in Vain…
Sovıet Unıon-Germany Non-Aggressıon Treaty
Why did Stalin have to sign a non-aggression treaty with Fascist Germany? During the 1930s, all imperialist states, particularly the British and French imperialists, rejected the USSR’s offer of a collective security treaty in Europe, and entered a policy of appeasing Hitler. When Hitler annexed Europe, invaded Czechoslovakia, they did not make a sound. The Soviet Union, whose efforts were unsuccessful, had to make a non-aggression agreement with Germany.
The non-aggression agreement gains the Soviets a period of around one year. By delaying the attack, it prolongs the preparation process. This agreement was made for this.
The bourgeois intellectuals and the press wrote that this shocked France and Britain. The same France and Britain did not fire a single bullet against German fascism for seven months when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.
The purpose of the attack on Stalin through this non-aggression agreement is primarily to equalize Hitler and Stalin. It’s to show the people that they’re both the same dictator, that they’re both the same murderer.
Another lie is the “secret additional protocol” of the treaty. Allegedly, this protocol was for Germany and the USSR to divide Poland, leaving Bessarabia to the USSR. The original of such a document has never been shown. Announced for the first time in a 1946 article in a US newspaper, it said that such a protocol was found in microfilms supposedly shot in Berlin. At the time, no one took this claim seriously. However, in the 1980s, when the enemy of the peoples Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, this secret protocol began to be discussed again in Europe.
The purpose of all these slanders is to destroy Stalin’s prestige. Imperialist tyrants still shake every time they hear Stalin’s name. Stalin has always been the fearful dream of the imperialists.
Imperialism has a massive dark history, which is enough for us to not believe in the lies of imperialism.
No imperialist lie can conceal their true face.
We will continue to fight against anti-Stalinism wherever we are. The struggle against anti-Stalinism is part of the struggle for revolution. The most important pillar of the revolutionary struggle is the ideological struggle!
Rejectıng Stalın Is Rejectıng Marxısm-Lenınısm!
To Be Stalınıst Today Is To Fıght Agaınst Imperıalısm And Fascısm For Socıalısm!
Stalın Is The Leader Of The Peoples Of Thıs World, One Of Our Leaders!
It Is Our Promıse To Stalın, We Wıll Shake Thıs World Once Agaın From Turkey!
People’s Front – Turkey
On 20 November, the trial against Grup Yorum!
The trial against the members of the Grup Yorum Helin Bölek and Bahar Kurt on November 20 at 09.30 am at the Caglayan Courthouse 35.
He will continue to appear before the criminal court. Grup Yorum and many democratic organizations participated in the case and announced the responsibility for the starving members of Grup Yorum. These include the families of the prisoners of Grup Yorum! The members of the Justice Group are continuing the 187-day hunger strike today.
The members of Grup Yorum have been starving for 187 days!
It is easy to say they are starving their
Body for over four months and demand justice!
On the side of the people who are right and legitimate
The imperialist system and Turkey
is afraid of the art struggle of Grup Yorum, which is the voice of the people.
This fear is a great obstacle to their own interests!
To open this barrier, the Idil Cultural Centre was attacked and rendered unusable. The prohibition of hundreds of thousands of concerts from European countries which
support Turkey are the consequences of their fear. The only reason for these bans is that people want to organise and defend their rights and prevent the organisation from doing so.
Grup Yorum, who are starving in their bodies, after all ways for the legitimate demands of the people and the artists of the people are not left alone, they fight against a system of injustice in Turkey and around the world.
To demand the legitimate demands of the people is to ensure that the 188th day of hunger strike protests is the end of the day. Let us not leave Helin Bölek and Bahar Kurt alone on 20 November at 09.30 at the caglayan Courthouse!
SOLIDARITY WITH GRUP YORUM!
GRUP YORUM IS THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE!
Dogan Presse Agence
US Navy SEAL acquitted of murder and war crimes in Iraq
A member of the US Navy special forces, the SEALs, was acquitted on July 2 of fatally stabbing an ISIS fighter in Iraq in 2017, according to the World Socialist website. The SEAL, Edward R. Gallagher, was tried by a US military court. Gallagher was charged with stabbing the teenage ISIS fighter to death after he had already been taken prisoner and disarmed. Gallagher was charged with many other offences, including threatening other SEALS who testified against him, calling them “traitors”. Gallagher had also been investigated for killing a young girl in Afghanistan back in 2010. It is clear that Gallagher is one of the military psychopaths US imperialism has come to rely on all over the world. Right-wing figures in the USA, including Congressmen, campaigned for his release and acquittal.
26.06.2019
June 23, 2019Once again in the middle of the night, the People’s Law Bureau (HHB) was raided and Ebru Timtik, Nadide Özdemir, Ayşegül Çağatay and Görkem Ağdede were detained under torture.
It was presented to the media as a major operation – a total of seven people were detained – Gülser Sarıgül, clients Kamile Kayır, Oya Arslan’s brother Özhan Arslan and others. The walls were demolished, the doors were broken, fascism attacked them in accordance with its own nature, and they used the news as an attempt to sow fear among the people and lawyers. But in no way can fascism accuse the revolutionaries. With the wanted lists they produce overnight, they turned Kamile Kayır into the object of a hunt, with a price on her head, “dead or alive”, which could result in her being murdered. A woman who has devoted her whole life to revolutionism, who was one of the 1996 Death Fast veterans, who came out of the hell of December 19, who put shrouds on the corpses of her comrades and was now targeted with lists. Under the oppressive conditions of fascism, secrecy is a right of the people, neither Kamile Kayır, nor the lawyers, employees and visitors to the HHB, who were its guests for the night, can be accused. Revolutionism and being a revolutionary lawyer has been made a crime by AKP fascism. It has used medieval methods, witch hunts, nearly 300 revolutionaries and friends of revolutionaries have been detained and arrested … HHB lawyers were arrested, quickly sentenced to a total of 159 years of imprisonment, even families were taken hostage in order to punish their daughters… Each of those detained in this operation has shown that the AKP’s intimidation policies HAVE COLLAPSED. Those detained in the first operation are in the same place, relatives of lawyers, in the same place… Fascism cannot intimidate the revolutionaries by using any means of pressure and force, a tradition that has grown from the massacres, the events like December 19, and the resistancs cannot be ended by jailing revolutionaries.
Down with fascism.
Long live our struggle.
Revolutionism is not crime, it is an honour!
We do not accept the lists, secrecy is not a crime!
Anti-imperialist front (Brussels)
02-06-2019
An envoy of US- and EU-backed collaborator Juan Guaido has been snubbed by Brazil when she presented her diplomatic credentials, according to Yahoo on May 31.Yahoo reports that régime change is not imminent in Venezuela and although Brazilian President Bolsonaro favours régime change, he and many others may be thinking that they overplayed their support for Guaido.It is true that those favoured by imperialism are expendable – for example Jonas Savimbi in Angola was abandoned and finally killed in 2002 when he outlasted his usefulness.
_______________________
An 81-year-old woman in Wales, part of Great Britain, committed suicide after her pension was stopped because of bureaucratic mistakes, according to the World Socialist website. Joy Worrall threw herself to her death after being down to her last five pounds. This unemployment and benefits system in Britain uses ‘sanctions’ against benefit claimants, pushing already poor people into misery and desperation. Worrall’s tragedy is only the latest case of this happening.
In April, a man named Stephen Smith died in Liverpool after he had been considered fit for work and had his benefits taken away even though a photograph showed him emaciated and looking like a concentration camp victim.
ANTI-IMPERIALIST FRONT:
Mahir Mete Kul Will Live in Our Hearts
Mahir Mete Kul left us in the best years of life. He was 23 years old. Since he was a child, he was growing side by side with the revolutionaries. He was named after Mahir Çayan and Mete Nezihi Altınay who fell martyr in the mountains of Sivas. The culture and moral he received from the revolutionaries made him a honest and honourable young man.
As he grew up, he joined the struggle, he became a member of Highschool Revolutionary Youth. He fought for completely independent Turkey. He wanted free education and future without tests. Then he was unjustly imprisoned by the fascism with the help of false witnesses, and threatened with a punishment of tens of years.
He was released from the prison, yet the fear of the fascists did not hesitate to mow him and his friends with lifetime sentences. The Turkish fascist system did not give the right to live to Mahir Mete nor to other youths.
Mahir Mete’s education was left half-way done. He was forced to leave the country for the sake of the struggle, and set off on the way to emigration. In order to cross the Mehriç river he took a boat which capsized.
He was buried today in Athens according to the revolutionary tradition that he belonged to.
We as Anti-Imperialist Front:
– denounce the policies of imperialism as the main enemy of the people and Turkish fascism as it’s collaborator, that forces the people either into dungeons or into exile;
– condemn the anti-immigration policies which drive thousands of humans into their death while they try to flee horrors caused by the imperialist politics;
– call for solidarity with the refugees who are persecuted for their anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle;
– call for struggle against xenophobia and racism towards immigrant workers.
Emigration is a consequence of the imperialist exploitation, military interventions and repression by the imperialist puppet regimes. Immigration control is the basis of the imperialist world system which guarantees exploitation of the poor countries.
ANTI-IMPERIALIST FRONT ON VERDICTS AGAINST REVOLUTIONARY LAWYERS IN TURKEY
The Anti-Imperialist Front calls for the immediate release of revolutionary and progressive lawyers in Turkey.
The decisions of the courts of fascism are null and void. This is class justice, in this case the “justice” of a system that does not even heed its own laws. The court had recourse to “secret witnesses”, a trend in recent years in Turkey which denies defendants even a pretence of a fair trial. No judiciary, no law, can judge the rightfulness and legitimacy of revolutionary lawyers. Rather than being a lawyer in order to lead a comfortable life, they were sentenced to between 3 and 20 years for being against injustice, for justice and honour and advocating for the people. In Turkey, the punishment is aimed at intimidating the revolutionaries who fight for justice for the people.
Paradise Turkey: here is the joint communiqué of all the European lawyers present at the trial of the #HHB People’s lawyers and #CHD progressives
We international observers, lawyers from Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Greece and The Netherlands, representing the Belgian Council of Bar Associations and Law Society, International Lawyers Association, Organization of Belgian Germand and French Speaking Lawyers, Brussels Bar, Liege Bar, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights, Italian Democratic Lawyers, Italian Association of Criminal Lawyers, European Democratic Lawyers, Legal Team, French Bar Association, Central Committee of French Lawyers, Lawyers without borders France, assisted since its beginning in September 2018 to the trial against the progressist Lawyers Association CHD.
The climax was reached yesterday when the President of the Court abruptly excluded all the lawyers from the possibility to assist to the hearing.
We are shocked because of the flagrant violations of fundamental principles of rule of law such as independence of the judiciary, fair trial and right to defence.
We are convinced that at this point this trial is completely null and void.
Protesting against the heavy prison terms inflicted we insist on the immediate acquittal of all defendants, to be attained through all possible judicial and legal means.
We express our solidarity to the defendants in the name of the common struggle for upholding justice and rule of law.
Istanbul, March the 20th 2019
Letter From Imprisoned Lawyer Aytaç Ünsal:
Our invitation:
We are lawyers of the people: we have defended the workers who are murdered every day on the building sites and in the mines.
We have defended villagers whose olives are plundered, whose mountains are pierced and whose rivers are poisoned.
We have defended youth condemned to corruption whose right to expression and action is not recognised. We have defended women exposed to rape, violence, humiliation and murder.
We have defended our Sunni people whose beliefs are exploited and commercialised.
We have defended our Alevi people whose beliefs and places of worship are under threat.
We have defended the Kurdish people who are disrespected and threatened with assimilation.
We have defended the Turkish people and the people of Anatolia whose national dignity is trampled upon by US bases occupying our territory.
We work as revolutionary lawyers who struggle for the people and homeland, experience torture and imprisonment, are murdered, struggle under all conditions and continue to pay the price.
This is why we have been prisoners for 18 months:
This is why they want to punish the People’s Law Bureau (HHB).
This is why we invite you to our trial between 18 and 21 March in Silivri, we will continue to defend the People’s Law Bureau.
One of the imprisoned lawyers of the People’s Law Bureau: AYTAC UNSAL