Four Defendants Released in MLKP Trial
Atılım newspaper Publication Co-ordinator İbrahim Çiçek, Ali Hıdır Polat, Ziya Ulusoy and Uğur Kayacı were released pending trial at the Tuesday hearing (17 May) of the trial related to the Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MLKP). Çiçek was in detention for five years.
24 defendants, 16 of whom are detained, are tried before the Istanbul 12th High Criminal Court in the scope of the case regarding the underground communist party. The coming hearing was scheduled for 13 October 2011.
The court decreed to extend the detention of Füsun Erdoğan, General Co-ordinator of the Istanbul Özgür ('Free') Radio, Atılm newspaper employee Sedat Şenoğlu and a further ten defendants.
The defendants are tried in the context of Operation "Intend" ('Gaye') carried out in several provinces in September 2006. They stand accused of "membership of the MLKP organization". The court board was fully replaced before the Tuesday hearing. The session started with the defence of the intervening lawyers.
A 40-page document was allegedly seized during the operation in Nazilli (western Turkey). This document constituted the evidence of the offences supposedly committed by the denfendants. The defence lawyers put forward that the document was not "real". The lawyers claimed that voice and image recordings taken in the course of the operation had been obscured. They demanded the court to have the records reviewed once more.
The lawyers pointed out that the lengthy periods of detention were in fact transformed into punishment and that this was contrary to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Lawyer Ercan Kanar argued that the special authority courts brought the "law of war" to the agenda. Laywer Gülser Tuncer claimed that the court board of this trial that was based "on lies" should be questioned on the five year trial period.
Gendarmerie intervention
Tension occurred when the court board requested defendant Arif Çelebi to finish his defence speech because it was deemed too long by the court.
A turmoil broke out in the court room upon the defence speech of defendant Seyfi Polat. Polat requested five minutes to shorten his defence. The court declined and demanded to have the defendant removed from the court room because he commemorated Hasan Ocak who was arrested, tortured and killed in 1995. Polat's family and the defendant himself insisted on staying at the hearing and a quarrel broke out between the gendarmerie, the defendant, his family and the lawyer.
The court board decided to exclude Polat from further hearings because he disrupted the order of the hearing.
"Release Çiçek"
About 50 people from the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) issued a press release in front of the Courthouse during the hearing. They demanded the release of detained defendant İbrahim Çiçek who is running for elections as independent candidate in Istanbul.
Freedom for Journalists Platform
The trial was observed by the Secretary General of the Turkish Journalists Association (TGC), Sibel Gümüş, the President of the Turkish Journalists Union (TGS), Ercan İpekçi, the Head of the Solidarity Association for Detained Journalists, Necati Abay and Ferai Tınç, current spokesman of the Freedom for Journalists Platform (GÖP).
In an announcement made during an intermission, Tınç said that together with a GÖP delegation he observed 95 cases against journalists and that they were always encountering the same sort of trouble.
"In every trial, the voice and image recordings the evidence is based on is fragmentary. The intervals are irregular and expert reports are not being considered. Detentions function like punishments. During each ruling period, journalists are being imprisoned under the pretext of membership in a terrorist organization. The Anti-Terror Law that is a threat to press freedom must be reviewed immediately", Tınç summarized. (NV/EÖ/VK)