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Novem­ber 28.2015, Tahir Elçi, Pres­i­dent of the Diyarbakır Bar Asso­ci­a­tion was assas­si­nat­ed at Balıkçılar­başı in the com­mune of Sur.

Tahir Elçi had just con­clud­ed a press con­fer­ence with a group of lawyers in front of the “Dört Ayak­lı Minare” (the Four-Legged Minaret), a build­ing dam­aged dur­ing the recent clash­es. Imme­di­ate­ly after his speech, around 11h, the group was tar­get­ed by gun­fire. Shot to the head and grave­ly wound­ed, Tahir Elçi was trans­ferred to the hos­pi­tal, but could not be saved.

A police­man was also shot dead. Two police­men and the cor­re­spon­dent for the Anadolu Ajan­si (AA) were wounded.

Accord­ing to wit­ness­es who spoke on the CNN Türk chan­nel, a man first shot at the police­men stand­ing near the group of lawyers and killed the police­man. Then, he moved clos­er to the group and shot at close range before flee­ing while still fir­ing his weapon.

Tahir Elçi had prac­ticed law in Diyarbakir since 1992. He was a mem­ber of the direc­torate of the Diyarbakır Bar Asso­ci­a­tion since 1998, and its Pres­i­dent since 2006. He was also a mem­ber of the Sci­en­tif­ic Coun­cil of the Human Rights Cen­ter of the Fed­er­a­tion of Turk­ish Bar Associations.

Tahir’s last words were :

The Four-Legged Minaret, a sym­bol of Diyarbakır, was unfor­tu­nate­ly ‘wound­ed in the foot’. We want an end to armed clash­es in his­tor­i­cal sites, pub­lic places belong­ing to the population.”

This is very bad news and yet anoth­er seri­ous assault on an essen­tial insti­tu­tion of the counter-pow­er, and echoes the jail­ing of jour­nal­ists in recent days.

Tahir Elçi was a guest on Ahmet Hakan’s pro­gram on CNN Türk last Octo­ber 14, before the Novem­ber elec­tions, along with Uygar Aktan, MHP mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Istan­bul (ultra-nation­al­ist par­ty). Dur­ing the pro­gram the top­ic drift­ed to that of the PKK. Tahir Elçi gave his opin­ion “Why is this prob­lem con­stant­ly being brought up? Look, in thir­ty years, a prob­lem that has caused fifty thou­sand deaths won’t be solved with the solu­tions you keep bring­ing up. The PKK isn’t a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion but an armed polit­i­cal move­ment, with spe­cif­ic demands and seri­ous sup­port from the population.”
Fol­low­ing Uygar Aktan’s reac­tion “Once he says the PKK isn’t a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, for my part, I have noth­ing to add” , Tahir Elçi had asked : “Is the State a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion? You will answer no. And yet, it reg­u­lar­ly behaves like one…”
These state­ments led to charges against him.

On Octo­ber 20 he was tak­en in for ques­tion­ing from his office in Diyarbakır and charged with “apol­o­gy of ter­ror­ism in the media” by an Istan­bul court, before being released pend­ing trial.
The pros­e­cu­tor had request­ed a sen­tence of one to sev­en and a half years imprisonment.
In a speech pro­nounced in Burhaniye (West­ern Turkey), Erdo­gan said he was “sad­dened by Elçi’s death”.
“This inci­dent shows how jus­ti­fied is our deter­mi­na­tion to fight ter­ror­ism,” he added. “We will pur­sue this bat­tle to the end. We will not stop, we will not back down.”
Of course, he did not spec­i­fy of which ter­ror­ism he spoke. And as his “fight against ter­ror­ism” main­ly tar­gets Kur­dish pop­u­la­tions, one could say this assas­si­na­tion is a part of it.

This is very bad news and yet anoth­er seri­ous assault on an essen­tial insti­tu­tion of the counter-pow­er, and echoes the jail­ing of jour­nal­ists in recent days.

Tahir Elçi was a guest on Ahmet Hakan’s pro­gram on CNN Türk last Octo­ber 14, before the Novem­ber elec­tions, along with Uygar Aktan, MHP mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Istan­bul (ultra-nation­al­ist par­ty). Dur­ing the pro­gram the top­ic drift­ed to that of the PKK. Tahir Elçi gave his opin­ion “Why is this prob­lem con­stant­ly being brought up? Look, in thir­ty years, a prob­lem that has caused fifty thou­sand deaths won’t be solved with the solu­tions you keep bring­ing up. The PKK isn’t a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion but an armed polit­i­cal move­ment, with spe­cif­ic demands and seri­ous sup­port from the population.”
Fol­low­ing Uygar Aktan’s reac­tion “Once he says the PKK isn’t a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, for my part, I have noth­ing to add” , Tahir Elçi had asked : “Is the State a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion? You will answer no. And yet, it reg­u­lar­ly behaves like one…”
These state­ments led to charges against him.

On Octo­ber 20 he was tak­en in for ques­tion­ing from his office in Diyarbakır and charged with “apol­o­gy of ter­ror­ism in the media” by an Istan­bul court, before being released pend­ing trial.
The pros­e­cu­tor had request­ed a sen­tence of one to sev­en and a half years imprisonment.
In a speech pro­nounced in Burhaniye (West­ern Turkey), Erdo­gan said he was “sad­dened by Elçi’s death”.
“This inci­dent shows how jus­ti­fied is our deter­mi­na­tion to fight ter­ror­ism,” he added. “We will pur­sue this bat­tle to the end. We will not stop, we will not back down.”
Of course, he did not spec­i­fy of which ter­ror­ism he spoke. And as his “fight against ter­ror­ism” main­ly tar­gets Kur­dish pop­u­la­tions, one could say this assas­si­na­tion is a part of it.


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