Türkçe | Français | English

16.01.2021


Over a one-year peri­od in Turkey, 3 362 peo­ple were sub­ject­ed to vio­la­tions of their rights. Dur­ing protests, 2 123 peo­ple were tak­en into police cus­tody, 44 of which were impris­oned and 294 peo­ple were sen­tenced in tri­als fol­low­ing assem­blies and demonstrations.


From her prison, Figen Yük­sek­dağ, for­mer copres­i­dent of the Peo­ple’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (HDP) called for sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mem­bers and lead­ers of the Social­ist Par­ty of the Oppressed (ESP), who have been in police cus­tody for sev­er­al days: “The police raids and cus­todies aimed at ESP will not stop hope’s onward move­ment. Let’s strength­en our sol­i­dar­i­ty so that all the arrest­ed ESP mem­bers find free­dom again along with copres­i­dent Özlem Gümüstaş!”


17.01.2021


ESP

Third day in police cus­tody for the 47 mem­bers and lead­ers of the Social­ist Par­ty of the Oppressed (ESP), mem­bers of the Fed­er­a­tion of Social­ist Asso­ci­a­tions (SGDF), of the Social­ist wom­en’s coun­cils (SKM), of the Limter-Is union of the ship­ping sec­tor, of the Foun­da­tion for research in sci­ence, edu­ca­tion, art and cul­ture, BEKSAV, the jour­nal­ists from the ETHA news agency, the staff of the mag­a­zine Kaldıraç. Accused of belong­ing to a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, an accu­sa­tion that has become a let­mo­tiv, 20 of them whose inter­ro­ga­tion by the pros­e­cu­tor is com­plet­ed, were sent to prison.


18.01.2021


While the Hrant Dink tri­al in which State employ­ees are being judged nears its end, Hakan Bakır­cıoğlu, one of the lawyers for the fam­i­ly of the Armen­ian jour­nal­ist assas­si­nat­ed on Jan­u­ary 19 2007 in Istan­bul, sig­naled that their requests for the widen­ing of the inquest and of the tri­al have not received a response: “This means there is no longer the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reach­ing an hon­est judgment.” 


Tayip Temel, vice copres­i­dent of the HDP respon­si­ble for the Press com­mis­sion, denounced the dec­la­ra­tion made by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nation­al Action Par­ty (MHP): “Bahçeli clear­ly threat­ened jour­nal­ists and politi­cians while also tar­get­ing them.”

Even Par­ty lead­ers are now mak­ing pub­lic denun­ci­a­tions call­ing on fin­ish­ing off the “purge” of the media.

Bahçeli had pub­lished this tweet: “Chron­i­clers for the Karar news­pa­per, for exam­ple, Elif Çakır, Yıldıray Oğur or Taha Aky­ol, and many oth­er pseu­do authors should not den­i­grate the MHP, should not slan­der it. For they are already in the hole they have dug for them­selves and are rec­og­nized by their faces that nev­er blush.”


19.01.2021


Hrant Dink

It was a day of trib­ute to Hrant Dink, the edi­tor in chief of the news­pa­per Agos, on the 14th anniver­sary of his assas­si­na­tion on Jan­u­ary 19 2007. His com­pan­ion Rakel Dink spoke at this year’s com­mem­o­ra­tion which took place in more restrict­ed con­di­tions due to the pan­dem­ic: “This is the place where suf­fer­ing teach­es us to be broth­ers and sisters.”

Read on Kedis­tan
Hrant Dink • His final arti­cle, “As Fear­ful as a Dove”


akkuyu

An explo­sion in the zone where is locat­ed the Akkuyu pow­er plant in Mersin, caused some wound­ed and destruc­tion to res­i­dences and green­hous­es. The pre­fec­ture declared this was a planned explo­sion and that a com­mis­sion is charged with exam­in­ing the dam­age in order to com­pen­sate the inhab­i­tants. As a reminder, an 86% major­i­ty of Mersin’s pop­u­la­tion is opposed to the con­struc­tion of a nuclear plant in Akkuyu.


20.01.2021


55th day of the revolv­ing hunger strikes begun in the pris­ons on Novem­ber 27 2020. Ömer Öcalan, HDP deputy for Urfa declared “inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions for human rights, the Euro­pean Com­mitte for the pre­ven­tion of tor­ture and of inhu­man or degrad­ing sen­tences or treat­ments (CPT) main­tain their total silence and blind­ness rel­a­tive to the total iso­la­tion prac­ticed on the leader of the Kurds, Abdul­lah Öcalan.”


hdp

Fol­low­ing the stat­ed inten­tion to elim­i­nate the HDP: at least 15 local head­quar­ters of the Peo­ple’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in Istan­bul were raid­ed by the police on Wednes­day. The police seized ban­ners and infor­ma­tion on the hunger strike of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Turkey. In some places, the peo­ple respon­si­ble for the head­quar­ters were tak­en into custody.

Read on Kedis­tan
The Turk­ish regime’s relent­less will to destroy the HDP


Thus, polit­i­cal oper­a­tions tar­get­ing the HDP con­tin­ue. This time, it is the turn of the for­mer deputy of Siirt, Hat­ice Koca­man. Free on bail until today, she is now incar­cer­at­ed dur­ing her tri­al for “belong­ing to an armed ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion” with a sen­tence of 15 years request­ed by the prosecution…

Read on Kedis­tan
Will the HDP End Up on the Long List of Pro­hib­it­ed Parties?


21.01.2021


The Gen­er­al Assem­bly of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment (EP) held a ses­sion devot­ed to “human rights in Turkey, the sit­u­a­tion of Demir­tas and of oth­er polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.” The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed a draft res­o­lu­tion demand­ing the imme­di­ate lib­er­a­tionof the for­mer co-pres­i­dents of the HDP, Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş and Figen Yük­sek­dağ. We already know the treat­ment giv­en to pri­or res­o­lu­tions of this nature.


Noth­with­stand­ing deci­sions reached by the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court… This is the sto­ry of Enis Berberoğlu, ex-deputy of the CHP, the Peo­ple’s Repub­li­can Par­ty. Accused of sup­ply­ing images of the MIT trucks to jour­nal­ist Can Dün­dar, he was put on tri­al and sen­tenced to per­pe­tu­ity (lat­er reduced to 25 years) and this, despite his immu­ni­ty. His sta­tus as a par­lia­men­tary mem­ber was only revoked when his con­dem­na­tion was read in the Nation­al Assem­bly, in his absence, of course. Solicit­ed lat­er, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court pro­nounced its ver­dict: rights were vio­lat­ed. But the Istan­bul Tri­bunal took no account of this deci­sion. Called upon for a sec­ond time, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court has just expressed its deci­sion, iden­ti­cal to the first… To be continued.


22.01.2021


ihd 2020

The Istan­bul office of the Human Rights Asso­ci­a­tion (İHD) has pub­lished the report on vio­la­tions of rights in the pris­ons of the Mar­mara region for the year 2020: in one year, the asso­ci­a­tion received 450 requests cov­er­ing 4 805 vio­la­tions from 59 pris­ons in the region, par­tic­u­lar­ly from the type T and type F pris­ons of Tekir­dağ, the pris­ons of Silivri and from Kocaeli. 4% (19) of the plain­tiffs were women and 96% (431) of the reports per­tained to men.


 

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
You may use and share Kedistan’s articles and translations, specifying the source and adding a link in order to respect the writer(s) and translator(s) work. Thank you.
KEDISTAN on EmailKEDISTAN on FacebookKEDISTAN on TwitterKEDISTAN on Youtube
KEDISTAN
Le petit mag­a­zine qui ne se laisse pas caress­er dans le sens du poil.