Fer­hat Encü is the HDP’s elect­ed mem­ber of par­lia­ment for Şır­nak. He has been in deten­tion since Novem­ber 4 2016. He was arrest­ed at the same time as nine oth­er mem­bers of par­lia­ment, includ­ing HDP’s Co-Pres­i­dents Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş and Figen Yük­sek­dağ. Today, the pros­e­cu­tor demand­ed against him a life sen­tence to be served in full.

Roboski

In fact, the tri­al against Fer­hat con­cerns the sequels to the « Robos­ki Mas­sacre ». On Decem­ber 28 2011, Turk­ish mil­i­tary planes bombed and killed 34 peo­ple on the Ira­ki-Turkey bor­der, near the vil­lage of Ulud­ere (Robos­ki in Kurdish).
RoboskiHere is a quick overview of the two ongo­ing inquests : one for the mas­sacre com­mit­ted in Robos­ki, and anoth­er against the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, includ­ing Fer­hat Encü.

Angry families

Funer­al of the Robos­ki victims

Fol­low­ing the mas­sacre, an inquest was opened by the Sir­nak Pros­e­cu­tor for the Republic…against 31 one per­sons, includ­ing Fer­hat Encü and the rel­a­tives of the vic­tims for « assault » against Naif Yavuz, Uludere’s Gov­er­nor who, on Decem­ber 31, three days after the mas­sacre, vis­it­ed the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies to « offer his condolences ».

It isn’t hard to under­stand that the Gov­er­nor, as State rep­re­sen­ta­tive, was not wel­come on the premis­es des­ig­nat­ed for con­do­lences, fol­low­ing a killing caused by the Turk­ish army…

Nat­u­ral­ly, the greet­ing was… difficult…

[vsw id=“2hVkAI0Y8MA” source=“youtube” width=“640” height=“344” autoplay=“no”]

In this mas­sacre, Fer­hat Encü him­self lost his broth­er Ser­hat Encü, along with nine mem­bers of his family.

At the open­ing of the inquest, 16 of the 31 “accused” were tak­en into cus­tody and kept in jail for sev­er­al months.

The inquest on the Roboski Massacre

An inquest was opened on Jan­u­ary 5 2012 con­cern­ing the mur­der of 34 vil­lagers in Robos­ki but, fol­low­ing a game of ping pong between var­i­ous courts, no real deci­sion has been pro­duced yet after five years of inquiry.

First, fol­low­ing a « con­fi­den­tial­i­ty » rul­ing on August 5 2012, , it was han­dled by the Diyarbakır Pros­e­cu­tor for the Repub­lic. Fol­low­ing a deci­sion of « non-juris­dic­tion », on June 11 2013, the files were trans­ferred to the “appro­pri­ate juris­dic­tion” — that of the Pros­e­cu­tor of the Gen­er­al Staff for hav­ing caused « the death by neg­li­gence ». The mil­i­tary court dis­missed the case six months lat­er on Jan­u­ary 7 2014. The lawyers for the Robos­ki vic­tims’ fam­i­lies appealed this deci­sion. Their appeal was denied on June 20 2014.
On July 18, the fam­i­lies and their lawyers appealed again to the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court. The Court refused the file on the death of 34 civil­ians, on the grounds that three of the fifty-three lawyers sign­ing the request had not pro­vid­ed pow­er of attor­ney doc­u­ments… Deter­mined in their search for jus­tice, the fam­i­lies have explored all legal means since 2011. Thus, on August 24 2016, they appealed to the Europe’s Human Rights Tri­bunal. In pass­ing, we note that Fer­hat Encü is the one who sol­licit­ed the Euro­pean tri­bunal on behalf of these families.

Ferhat Encü

Fer­hat Encü with the list of Robos­ki victims

Where do things stand for Ferhat Encü?

Dur­ing the inquest, Fer­hat was arrest­ed and detained in Kandi­ra prison. He was accused of assault, dur­ing the protests against the Governor’s pres­ence in the place reserved for con­do­lences. He is charged with « kick­ing » the Governor…

Fol­low­ing the inquest, a tri­al was opened on Novem­ber 9 2016, five years after the Robos­ki Mas­sacre and the tumul­tuous con­do­lences… The indict­ment was received and approved by the Sir­nak Tri­bunal, and a sen­tence of « per­pe­tu­ity to be served in full » request­ed by the pros­e­cu­tor. In pass­ing, a reminder that this sen­tence has replaced the death sen­tence after it was sup­pressed in July 2004 in Turkey. He is accused of « attempt­ed mur­der on a pub­lic offi­cial in the exer­cise of his duties. » The Gov­er­nor of that peri­od, Naif Yavuz, appears in the file as the « plaintiff ».

In this same inquest, Fer­hat was tak­en into cus­tody, inter­ro­gat­ed and released six times. Fol­low­ing his par­lia­men­tary immu­ni­ty after his elec­tion in 2015, Fer­hat Encü’s case was split off from the rest of the indict­ment and a request sent to Par­lia­ment to allow him to stand tri­al. Fol­low­ing the lift­ing of par­lia­men­tary immu­ni­ty for the HDP mem­bers on May 20 2016, Fer­hat was arrest­ed on two files involv­ing him, includ­ing that of Robos­ki, and his case recom­bined with the rest of the indict­ment. Jus­tice announced that the tri­al was trans­ferred from the Sir­nak Tri­bunal to that of Diyarbakır « for secu­ri­ty rea­sons ». The Diyarbakır Tri­bunal should announce the date of the next hear­ing in the com­ing days.

The indict­ment pre­pared by Sirnak’s pros­e­cu­tor in light­ning speed over five days, accus­es the group of « attempt­ed lynch­ing » of the Gov­er­nor dur­ing his con­do­lence vis­it « with the use of stones, sticks, fists »… The prosecutor’s the­sis claims that the police­men and the guards accom­pa­ny­ing the Gov­er­nor were also wound­ed and states that the Gov­er­nor pro­vid­ed a med­ical report. How­ev­er, said report notes that the vic­tim « suf­fered slight wounds treat­ed in a sin­gle visit ».

The kick”, a strong symbol in Turkey

In order to under­stand, we must go back to the cat­a­stro­phy in Soma where poor secu­ri­ty con­di­tions in the mine cost the lives of 301 min­ers. In shock and deeply angered, the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives had denounced the lack of secu­tiry in the mine and protest­ed vig­or­ous­ly when Tayyip Erdoğan, then Prime Min­is­ter, had vis­it­ed the site. Dur­ing the protests, while Erdal Kocak­bıyık, a young min­er who had lost his rel­a­tives and friends, was force­ful­ly held by secu­ri­ty, one of the Prime Minister’s advi­sors, Yusuf Yerkel, kicked him vio­lent­ly. The pho­to of this ges­ture, which speaks loud­er than a sim­ple kick, was seen around the world and re-ignit­ed the anger. As for the Minister’s advi­sor, he was nev­er both­ered nor did he resign from his post. But the min­er was sen­tenced to a fine of 543 lTurk­ish lira (136€) for dam­age caused to an armored vehi­cle (!) for which dam­ages of 2000 Turk­ish lira (500€) were pur­port­ed­ly claimed. In pass­ing, no cer­tifi­cates or affi­davits were pro­duced in sup­port of this claim.

This image being stamped into the country’s col­lec­tive mem­o­ry, the kick attrib­uted to Fer­hat Encü takes on a dif­fer­ent meaning…

The impuni­ty of advi­sors and oth­er staff close to lead­ers per­form­ing acts of vio­lence is noth­ing new. Tayyip Erdoğan him­self set the exam­ple dur­ing his vis­it to Soma, by insult­ing a young­ster close to the min­ers, call­ing him a « Jew­ish seedling » after slap­ping him across the face.

And so, in recent years, pseu­do « affairs » have been care­ful­ly com­piled against Oppo­si­tion mem­bers and par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­bers of par­lia­ment, lead­ing to the « lift­ing of par­lia­men­tary immu­ni­ty » after the abort­ed putsch in July.

The state of emer­gency and the dis­ap­pear­ance of the Rule of Law thus offi­cial­ized allows for « judg­ments » and sen­tences designed to decap­i­tate all oppo­si­tion to Erdoğan’s civil­ian coup d’état. This is a delib­er­ate pol­i­cy the HDP right­ful­ly describes as a « polit­i­cal geno­cide ». The same erad­i­ca­tion pol­i­cy is being con­duct­ed in oth­er areas, for exam­ple that of man/woman equal­i­ty and the demo­c­ra­t­ic exer­cis­ing of shared pow­ers… Des­ti­tu­tion, then impris­on­ment of women Co-May­ors, fol­low­ing old or new « files » also aimed at destroy­ing a com­mon and inno­v­a­tive polit­i­cal prac­tice and fem­i­nist con­quests of recent years, for instance. We will return to this topic.

Fer­hat Encü can­not be deliv­ered to injus­tice amid gen­er­al indif­fer­ence. He is also a hostage of the regime, an expi­a­to­ry vic­tim designed to avoid the author­i­ties’ ever hav­ing to account for their crimes.


Added on January 20 2017:

Con­di­tion­al lib­er­ty for Fer­hat Encü on the Robos­ki tri­al. But he will stay behind bars for anoth­er tri­al… UBU…

Added on February 15 2017:

Fer­hat Encü is freed on parole.


En français :  Fer­hat Encü, vic­time expi­a­toire de l’in­jus­tice. Cliquez pour lire

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