Appeals court upholds life sentences for 4 defendants including journalist Karaca, former MP İşbilen

By TM – November 7, 2020 Share on FacebookTweet on Twitter.

A regional court of appeals in Ankara has ruled to uphold the aggravated life sentences of four defendants — journalist Hidayet Karaca, former lawmaker İlhan İşbilen, Fethullah Gülen’s cousin Kazım Avcı and Alaeddin Kaya, former owner of the Zaman newspaper — Turkish media reported on Friday.

Journalist Hidayet Karaca gets 31-year jail time for supporting Erdogan’s opponent

In June 2018 the Ankara 4th High Criminal Court handed down aggravated life sentences to Karaca, former chief executive of the Samanyolu Media Group; İşbilen, a former member of parliament from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP); and Avcı and Kaya on charges of attempting to overturn the constitutional order.

Their aggravated life sentences were upheld by the 20th Criminal Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court of Justice on Friday, as part of a case that was launched against 75 people accused of having links to the faith-based movement inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.

The sentences of three other defendants — Gülen lawyers Abdülkadir Aksoy and Ali Çelik, and businessman Dilaver Azim, who received 10 years, six months for “membership in a terrorist organization” — were also upheld by the court.

The chamber also ruled for a continuation of detention for the seven defendants, who will now be able to appeal the decision at the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Sixty-seven out of the 75 defendants of the case live outside of Turkey, and one of them, Cemal Uşşak, passed away from cancer in 2016.

Turkey issues warrant for US-based Erdogan critic Gülen

Sixty-three-year-old Avcı has faced numerous medical problems in prison due to being an amputee. He was put in pretrial detention in December 2015 and had lost 22 kilograms in the first five months of his incarceration.

Seventy-four-year-old İşbilen was hospitalized in late September after contracting COVID-19 at Ankara’s Sincan Prison and is now reportedly suffering from an embolism.

According to Turkish media, he applied for release on probation numerous times due to the high risk of the spread of the coronavirus in the crowded prison, but his petitions were rejected by the authorities as he was an opponent of the administration of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The Turkish government labels the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization and accuses members of the group of masterminding a coup attempt that claimed the lives of 251 people in July 2016.

Ibrahim Karayegen, the former night news editor of Zaman daily, asked for his release.

“An indictment has to be grounded upon factual realities, not on impressions… The indictment regards journalistic activities as crimes. If you charge me with the coup, then there must be ‘in the act’ situation or you have to prove my connection with the coup plotters,” he told the court. He reminded that the Constitutional Court ruled that courts cannot decide how journalists practice their profession, how they can write stories. “I worked for the Zaman daily for 12 years. I was not a manager. During this period, the newspaper had had no link to any terrorist organization,” Karayegen said during his defense at the court on Thursday.

Although Gülen and his followers strongly deny all coup-related allegations and any involvement in terrorist activity, Ankara launched a massive crackdown following the abortive putsch and detained or arrested almost 80,000 people while prosecuting more than 511,000 over alleged links to the group.

Parliament passed a law in April that allowed for the release of tens of thousands of prisoners to ease overcrowding in jails and protect detainees from the coronavirus. However, the bill excluded inmates jailed on terrorism charges, including İşbilen and many others swept up in the government-led crackdown.

Scores of inmates have died, allegedly due to the negligence of prison authorities across the country during the pandemic, according to reports by Turkish news outlets critical of the Erdoğan administration

Opposition lawmaker’s report reveals 339 cases of torture in Turkey in October

By TM – November 7, 2020 Share on FacebookTweet on Twitter

Cases of human rights violations in Turkey in October included 339 incidents of torture and maltreatment, with 200 of them taking place in prisons, a report drafted by Sezgin Tanrıkulu, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), revealed on Friday.

The report by Tanrıkulu, a prominent human rights activist and deputy head of a parliamentary committee on human rights, also indicated 42 violations of the right to life and 508 violations of freedom of speech as well as 354 violations of the freedom of assembly taking place during the same period.

According to the report, investigations were launched into five members of the press. Eight journalists were detained, four were arrested and 15 either received prison sentences or were sentenced to pay fines. A journalist was also attacked in October.

Police officers raided eight buildings belonging to political parties or organizations and arrested 50 politicians and political organization members, the report also said.

Tanrıkulu further underlined that a total of 194 people were detained and arrested in October for attending 58 events for the public release of statements and protests.

Turkish Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop on Saturday rejected a proposal submitted by Tanrıkulu for the creation of a special commission to investigate human rights violations in Turkish prisons amid the coronavirus pandemic.

An inmate infected with COVID-19 in Istanbul’s Silivri Prison, which holds a large number of Turkey’s political prisoners, recently revealed that he and more than 40 other prisoners are being kept in a ward that was designed to accommodate only seven people.

The inmate also reported that they receive seven rations of food for around 40 people almost every day and have only two bathrooms and one kitchen sink, which creates tension between the prisoners who have to wait all the time to take care of their basic needs.

Although Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government adopted a law in April to release thousands of inmates to ease overcrowding in jails and protect detainees from the coronavirus, it excluded political prisoners. Tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned on terror-related charges as part of a crackdown launched by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the aftermath of an attempted coup in 2016. Most of those people were merely critical of the government and had not engaged in any criminal activity

22,321 members of the pro-Kurdish party detained since 2015 with the complicit silence of the Turkish left

Saturday, November 07, 2020 https://kurdiscat.blogspot.com/2020/11/22321-membres-del-partit-pro-kurd.html

According to data compiled by the Legal Commission of the Halkların Demokratik Partisi (HDP, People’s Democratic Party), 22,321 members of the HDP were detained from June 24, 2015 to September 25, 2020. first two years it reached 3,647.

According to a report by the Local Government Commission, the HDP won 65 municipalities but currently only 6 remain under its administration.

‘Patrons’ (state appointed substitutes for arrested Kurdish elected officials) were appointed in 48 municipalities, three of which are metropolitan municipalities. 84 members of the municipal council and 9 members of the provincial general assembly were dismissed. Of the 37 co-mayors arrested, 18 remain in custody.

People’s Democratic Party (HDP) MP Van Sezai Temelli said: “We are now clearly revealing the name of the regime that has been consolidated since 2015: fascism” and said that opposition parties and the ‘social opposition other than HDP should not be silent.

Temelli remarked that the AKP-MHP bloc has been trying for five years to suppress or even destroy social opposition and attacked the working class, the women’s movement and its achievements, and in particular the HDP, which is the point common to all. He said the AKP-MHP bloc is aware that HDP is the vanguard of the forces of democracy.

“We now clearly set out the name of the regime that has been consolidated since 2015: fascism,” Temelli said, and continued: “The arrests and arrests that began with the ‘Collapse Plan’ and were made with the pretext of Kobanê ‘s research that the HDP idea is a hope for people. “

Temelli recalled that 11 HDP MPs were behind bars, as well as 10,000 of the approximately 22,000 HDP members, administrators and elected members who had been detained since 2015. The HDP MP continued: “More than 100 municipalities won by our party have been confiscated.

Turkish anti-riot police block members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) during Kurdish activist Zulkuf Gezen funeral in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, on March 18, 2019. – A Kurdish activist on hunger strike in a Turkish prison committed suicide, his family and Kurdish party officials said on Monday, sparking clashes with police at his grave in a southeast province. (Photo by Ilyas AKENGIN / AFP)

Of course, HDP will resist, but if we want to get rid of this fascist power, the social opposition, especially the other opposition parties, should not shut up. a regime that legitimizes torture and a social opposition that does not raise its voice against it, fascism goes so far that Kurdish villagers are thrown from a helicopter..

Therefore, this government, which continues its assimilationist, monistic, centuries-old state tradition and is concerned about its own survival, chose Kurdish hostility as a remedy.

He has been following this policy for five years. The government should know, however, that the HDP strongly adheres to its perspective. What has been done to us so far and the political operations that will follow will not make us kneel, they will not divert the HDP from its path. “.