Trial against Zarakolu and Ersanli opens today

Trial against Zarakolu and Ersanli opens today

The BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) has called on the international opinion to attend the trial of Ragýp Zarakolu (publisher) and Büşra Büþra Ersanlý (university professor) which will open today at the court of special authority in Istanbul. Zarakolu and Ersanlý had been arrested, together with scores of other BDP executives and academics last October. While Zarakolu has been released, Ersanlý is still in prison.

The trial is part of the ongoing so called KCK (Kurdish Communities Union) operations, which have resulted in the arrest and prosecution of thousands of Kurdish politicians, lawyers, deputies, councillors, human rights activists, academics, journalists and many other activists working for non-government organizations.

Speaking about the KCK (Kurdish Communities Union), lawyer and human rights defender Abdulbaki Boða said that “We expect the court to hold a fair and lawful trial in conjunction with the international conventions and the Treaty of Lausanne Turkey has signed to.”

Boða, reminding that his clients are tried in the scope of KCK which the supreme court of appeals describes as an “armed terror organization”, said that; “What kind of an armed organization is this, as even a small firework wasn’t found out within the scope of the case? The KCK case is directly linked to the general politics and the Kurdish problem in Turkey.”

Lawyer Boða called attention to “secret witnesses” in the file of the case and noted that; “The judicial authority knows the identities of secret witnesses but we sometimes doubt about the presence of this kind of witnesses because their allegations always contradict one another. A secret witness for example recognizes a client of mine on a photograph however it is not my client seen on that photo. There is an obvious special plan put into effect in this respect.”

Boða, underlining that the 2,400 paged accusation against the accused KCK detainees consists of repetitions, remarked that; “Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) politicians are placed in a scheme which is put forward in the accusation concerning the duties and responsibilities mentioned in KCK convention. When the detained people do not fit into this schema, they are shown as the members of a so-called Istanbul KCK City Council. Telephone interviews and photographs of people entering and leaving the BDP provincial office and Politics Academy are put forward ass evidences against the KCK detainees.”

The accusation also consists of serious problems in respect to main criminal factors, noted Boða and added that “It is claimed that the decisions of some action plans in Istanbul were made during the meetings of BDP executives. Incidents and actions are directly linked to the accused people despite the lack of any concrete evidences.”

Concerning the Kurdish self-defense crisis at courts, lawyer Boða said that; “As this is an unresolvable problem in KCK cases, we hope all demands for self-defense in mother language will be accepted by Turkish courts.”