The Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) said initial results from Sunday’s election showed it would take 80 of 550 seats, a stunning result for a party that pollsters had said would struggle to cross the required 10% threshold.

It also marks a major setback for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had hoped for a crushing victory for the AK party he founded, allowing it to change the constitution and give him broad executive powers.

Erdogan had repeatedly lashed out at the HDP and its charismatic leader Selahattin Demirtaş before the elections.

“This result shows that this country has had enough. Enough of Erdoğan and his anger,” said Seyran Demir, a 47-year-old housewife who was among the thousands who gathered in the streets around the HDP’s provincial headquarters. “I am so full of joy that I can’t speak properly.”

The crowds brought traffic to a standstill in parts of the city. Elsewhere, people drove through sidestreets hanging out of car windows and waving HDP flags. Men fired pistols into the air, a traditional sign of celebration.

Just two days earlier, bombs tore through a HDP rally in Diyarbakir, killing two and wounding at least 200.

The HDP had looked to reach beyond Turkey’s roughly 20% Kurdish population, attempting to woo centre-left and secular voters disillusioned with Erdoğan.

“The reason the HDP has won this many votes is because it has not excluded any members of this country, unlike our current rulers,” said 25-year-old Siar Senci. “It has embraced all languages, all ethnicities and members of all faiths and promised them freedom.”

The HDP’s entrance into parliament as a party – previously candidates ran as independents to skirt the 10% threshold – could also herald a step forward for the Kurdish peace process.

Ankara launched peace talks with the militant Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) two years ago. The PKK took up arms in 1984 in an insurgency for greater autonomy that has killed 40,000 people.

“We have waited for this day for years. During those dark times, I wondered if I could see Turks and Kurds living in solidarity in my own lifetime. Thank God it happened,” said 63-year-old Ersin Ates.

“Now we don’t want another single bullet to be shot. Our fight will continue in the parliament.”

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/07/joy-as-turkish-election-result-puts-pro-kurdish-party-into-parliament

Towards the end of May of 2013, a resistance began in Istanbul Gezi Park and spread across entire Turkey during the month of June. This resistance was that of the people rising up against governmental oppression. Those of us, living in the Netherlands, have shown our solidarity with the millions living in Turkey and have also organised protests in the Netherlands from the first day of the resistance. Following the resistance, we have regularly come together in forums, under the umbrella of Gezi Solidarity Netherands, where we have debated issues related to, not only Turkey, but also to the Netherlands as well as global issues and have our reactions to these issues through various activities and protests.

We have decided to organise a festival in honour of the first anniversary of the June 2013 resistance. This festival is being organised entirely on the foundation of a spirit of solidarity and with the collaboration of volunteers. With this festival, even if simply symbolic, we wish to bring the Gezi spirit and solidarity to the Netherlands and experience the accompanying joy. At the same time, we shall commemorate those who have lost their lives during the resistance, which spread throughout the country.
As an awareness and a reminder nailed to our mind, to our consciousness, to our passion, to our muscles and joints, and to our ways of perception; saying “Taksim everywhere, resistance everywhere”, we are going to meet again with all of our colors and voices.

How can you support this festival?

• Bringing food and drinks to Gezi kitchen and becoming part of our shared ‘world buffet’.
• The festival is free of charge. Selling items or services is not allowed within the festival area.
• You may support us financially as a sponsor.
• Loaning all manner of technical material that can be of use to us.
• Organising any of the voluntary activities and adding your contribution.

Any support from and collaboration with you is of great value to us. We look forward to your participation and contribution to our festival.

What happened in Gezi Park?

It all began for the sake of a few trees. The motivation was to protest the building of a shopping centre that would demolish a park that served as the only green spot left in the middle of a city. This democratic protest, similar to other protests, was subject to violent police intervention. The tents that were pitched in the park were looted, and the park was ruthlessly cleared of protestors. From that moment on, the real resistance began. Because the underlying issue was not just about a couple of trees, but about the growing government oppression that was already in effect for years; it was about the government`s intervention in individual’s life styles, and it was about the increasing limitation of freedoms. The resistance started in Gezi Park, and waves of protests spread first to Istanbul and finally across all of Turkey. Millions filling the streets protested against the government. Protests of solidarity have been organised all around the world.

The Gezi resistance has brought together holding different views and those who never participated in any type of political protest before in their lives. Solidarity flourished under tear gas and police attacks, and a new culture which we now name as the ‘Gezi Spirit’ bloomed.

Taksim Community

The police cleared out the park following attacks on those who protested in the tents set up in the Gezi Park. Following this incident, the public owned this resistance, and thousands came to support. People built barricades surrounding the area around Taksim Square and did not stop resisting until they reoccupied Gezi Park and the police finally had to retreat. During those days of the police retreat, people managed to create a historical alternative mode of living by building a communal life in the park. The Taksim Community took a in which no hierarchy existed, where people of different backgrounds and classes came together for a common goal, and where a common understanding of direct democracy presided, with a spontaneous sense of harmony and functionality.  One of the Gezi resistance fighters described the park in those days as “the most joyful place on earth at the  moment where no one is poverty stricken, where even the poor enjoy art, books and the touch of humanity to the maximum”. At all hours of the day, food was provided to everyone free of charge by public kitchens. Those  wounded were treated at the infirmary by voluntary doctors, and health officers. Security, cleaning and other tasks were carried out through job-sharing in the park, where people created their own self-governing  mechanism. An alternative living space was created with its own cafe, educational area and market garden.  Alongside this, cultural and art activities were organised all day long. Activities such as a chess club, a Gezi  library, concerts and performances on an open stage, painting exhibitions, were arranged with free of charge access for everyone. The park took on a colourful atmosphere where some practiced yoga in the mornings,  some picked up trash and cleaned up, where those who prayed and others who drank alcohol could stand  side by side and where an understanding based upon respect for all humanity and nature prevailed. With the Taksim resistance, people learned to co-exist in a collective life. A political transformation occurred. People  managed to listen to, understand and feel empathy for those who thought differently to themselves and to  resist together, hand in hand with others, even though they did not necessarily share the same views.

Contact

https://www.facebook.com/GeziFestNL
https://twitter.com/Gezi_NL

Yesterday ReINFORM participated in the demonstration (at the Museumplein in Amsterdam) organised by the Federation of Democratic Unions of Turkish Workers in the Netherlands (DIDF http://www.didf.nl/) against the AKP government of Turkey. The demonstrators express not only their compassion to the families of 300 miners (up to this moment) who lost their lives during the explosion on Tuesday May 13th in the mine, owned by the “Soma Kömürleri A.Ş” company, in the western city of Soma but they express also their anger against the Turkish government which had recently privatised the mine. The aim of the privatisation was the reduction of the production costs by 60% and that included drastic cuts on safety measures and fewer job positions for cheaper and inexperienced miners while the experienced ones had to be made redundant.

DIDF is inviting all democratic organizations, trade unions and intellectuals to protest against the AKP government of Turkey which is responsible for the Soma massacre. You can protest by sending your e-mails to Turkish officials mentioned below. DIDF would appreciate it if you sent a copy of your e-mail to info@didf.nl

President of Turkey:
Abdullah Gül
Email:  cumhurbaskanligi@tccb.gov.tr , Fax 0 (312) 470 24 33

Prime minister of Turkey:
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
Email:  bimer@basbakanlik.gov.tr , Fax: +90 312 422 26 69, +90 312 422 18 99

Minister of Energie and Natural Resources:
Taner Yıldız
Email: bilgi@enerji.gov.tr , Phone: +90 312 212 64 20

More info on the website of DIFD: http://www.didf.nl/

Members of KESK, the Turkish public-sector trade union, have reason to celebrate. A court In Istanbul has decided to release 23 union members held in jail for nearly a year. Six of their colleagues—three men, three women—remain imprisoned, however, until at least early May. And a very large number are awaiting trial on various charges.

The episode began nearly a year ago, following a suicide bombing at the US embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara. The bomb left two dead (one the attacker) and three injured. The Devrimci Halk Kurtuluş Partisi-Cephesi (DHKP-C)—the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front—admitted responsibility. The DHKP-C, which has pursued violence for over three decades, has been branded a terrorist organisation not only by the Turkish government but by the European Union and the US as well.

Pretext

Nothing links the DHPK-C to KESK but the bombing provided a pretext for the anti-union government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to use the country’s excessively broad anti-terror laws to crack down on an old enemy. KESK and its affiliated teachers’ union have been a thorn in the side of the AK Party government—strongly opposing unpopular neo-liberal policies, in education and elsewhere, which it has been trying to push through. Hundreds of leaders of KESK and the teachers had already been arrested following protests in Ankara.

Days after the bombing, police swept through KESK offices across the country and many trade unionists were arrested at home—nearly 170 were caught up in the raids. Many of the detainees were swiftly released and others arrested in provincial towns were eventually sent home to await trial. But in Istanbul the police decided that 29 KESK leaders were simply too dangerous to be let out on to the streets. At the request of global and European unions, LabourStart launched an online campaign, which generated nearly 13,000 protest messages.

The charges

That’s why I found myself sitting last month in a tiny, hot, airless hearing room inside the largest courthouse in Europe. The charges against the 56 KESK leaders (half of whom were on bail) were membership of an illegal organisation, making propaganda for that organisation and, in some cases, being leaders of it. The trade unionists denied all the charges.

It had taken nearly a year for the arrested KESK members to have their day in court. The three judges confirmed the identities of those standing trial and then allowed them, one by one, to state their cases.

The first was a schoolteacher who spoke at length about the history of the Turkish trade-union movement, crushed first by the military dictatorship in the 1980s and now again by the Islamist government. The lead judge interrupted her, asking how long she would go on as he was keen to take a break. “As long as I need,” she replied. “I have a lot to say!”

Her speech met rousing applause from an audience which included trade unionists from a number of European countries. During the break, they joined hundreds of KESK members in a protest on the plaza opposite the courthouse.

Pesky KESK

Though the demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Down with fascism”, Turkey is clearly not a fascist state. (Fascist states don’t allow demonstrations of this type.) But Turkey is a state that recognises few of the internationally-accepted rights for workers and won’t allow civil servants, for example, to have a collective-bargaining agreement.

There is no question that the Erdogan government is trying to break the union by jailing its leaders. As one of the visiting European union representatives put it, it’s an attempt to “decapitate” the troublesome KESK.

These trials, like those which preceded them, have been ignored by the mainstream media. In Turkey, this is to be expected, as the media are in the grip of AK. But few journalists in Europe and elsewhere have shown any interest in these events. Apparently, unless blood flows in the streets—as it did last spring in Taksim Square and Gezi Park—Turkey is of no interest to the world.

Sakine Cansiz, a founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the early 1980s, and two other Kurdish women were found shot dead in Paris in January 2013.

Carrying banners reading “Turkish state the murderer, France the accomplice”, demonstrators accused the Turkish state of being behind the murders and criticised the French judiciary for what they said was the slow pace of the investigation.

“Today it has been one year since the murder and we still have no answers to our all questions,” Rezan, a Kurdish student living in France, told Reuters. She declined to give her family name.

Chief suspect Omer Guney, a Turkish immigrant in France, was placed under formal investigation within about a week of the triple murder.

Sources told Reuters in October that French investigators had collected evidence about Guney’s connections to Turkey, and the magistrate in charge of the case was about to lodge a formal appeal for information to Turkey.

Turkey has denied any involvement in the murders, suggesting instead they were related to internal disputes in the PKK.

The PKK is outlawed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

“The investigation is not making progress, we want justice,” said Ali, another demonstrator in Paris, who also declined to give his family name.

(Reporting by Pauline Ades-Mevel; Writing by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Sophie Hares)

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/11/uk-france-kurds-demonstration-idUKBREA0A0AZ20140111

The three ministers who resigned headed the key Interior, Economics and Environment ministries. They handed in their notices following the arrests of members of their families by prosecuting authorities investigating allegations of corruption relating to business contracts and banking operations. Among the leading businessmen arrested by police in recent days is the CEO of the state-run Halkbank, which has extensive dealings with Iran. Also arrested was an Iranian businessman Riza Sarraf, who trades in gold and has close links with the bank.

The Minister for European Union Affairs refused to resign and was sacked by Erdogan, who also replaced another six of his ministers. This means that a total of ten ministers have been replaced in the country’s 26-seat cabinet. The minister for Environment and Urban Planning complained he had been pressured to resign and declared, “All of the construction projects were approved by me on the instructions of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister should therefore also resign.”

The wave of resignations and subsequent cabinet reshuffle represents a major crisis for the Erdogan government, which has held power since 2003. The prime minister reacted swiftly by dismissing or transferring dozens of police officers and attorneys involved in the corruption investigations, while at the same time claiming that “dark foreign powers” were conspiring against his government.

Last weekend Erdogan was more explicit, suggesting that the US Ambassador in Ankara, Francis Ricciardone, was involved in provocations against his government and could be expelled from the country.

Erdogan also referred to an “illegal gang operating inside the state.” This is generally regarded as a reference to the movement headed by Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who is based in the United States.

A week ago four pro-government dailies ran the same story, claiming that Ricciardone had told a group of European ambassadors that Turkey had failed to respect the US sanctions regime against Iran. Ricciardone reportedly told the assembled ambassadors, “You are now watching the collapse of an empire,” referring to the corruption investigations in Turkey.

Suspicions of US involvement in the Turkish government crisis were reinforced by the arrival in Ankara some days ago of the US Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, David Cohen.

The turmoil at the summits of the Turkish ruling elite comes amid a broad political crisis provoked by sudden shifts in US imperialism’s Middle East policy. In September, Washington decided to postpone its war plans against Syria—which the Erdogan government pushed for aggressively—and instead seek a broad settlement with the Iranian regime, Syria’s main regional ally. Negotiations with Iran are still continuing, with Washington offering Iran only limited relief to sanctions that have devastated its oil industry and economy.

Turkey buys large quantities of oil and gas from Iran, which it has traditionally paid for in gold. As part of its sanctions offensive against Iran, the US expressly banned gold exports to Iran in July of this year, seriously impacting on Turkish trade with its eastern neighbor. Iran’s main intermediary with Turkey for payments was the Halkbank, whose activities have now been severely disrupted by the latest arrests.

The precise role played in the latest crisis by the Hizmet movement led by Fethullah Gülen remains unclear. However, what is certain is that the Islamic preacher exercises considerable influence within the Turkish judicial system and police from his base in the US state of Pennsylvania.

The Gülen community is one of the most influential Islamic groups in Turkey, with hundreds of thousands of followers. It runs a network of private schools in 140 countries across the globe and has a major presence in Turkey’s educational system. Measures to be introduced at the start of the new year by the Erdogan government to curtail the activities of secondary schools are largely aimed at reining in the influence of Gülen, who relies on his network of schools in Turkey for influence and financial support.

Hizmet also has its own media empire, including the Turkish-language Zaman (Time), the English language Today’s Zaman and Samanyolu TV. Gülen’s movement is also alleged to have played a leading role in the Ergenekon affair, which resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of a broad layer of the Turkish military elite together with a number of journalists critical of the government.

Fethullah Gülen’s organization is right-wing, ardently nationalist, and anti-communist. For a time Gülen was an ally of Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), with both movements sharing similar roots in rising layers of the Anatolian bourgeoisie. In 1998, Gülen fled Turkey following charges of subversion made by a Turkish prosecutor. Gülen was able to enter the US, where he quickly established a broad network of schools funded in part by leading US business figures.

Gülen has repeatedly sought to stress his pro-US positions; he has been able to increase his influence in these circles in recent years as Erdogan’s own previously close relations with the West and the US have come under increasing strain.

Relations between the AKP and Gülen deteriorated rapidly in 2010, when the latter criticized the Turkish-led aid flotilla for Palestinian refugees for refusing to seek an accord with Israel before attempting to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip. Erdogan, for his part, criticized the Israeli assault on the unarmed flotilla which cost the lives of nine Turkish citizens.

Since then, Gülen has more faithfully followed the twists and turns of US policy in the Middle East, distancing himself both from Erdogan’s uncritical support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Turkish premier’s repeated calls for Western military intervention in Syria.

Gülen has also criticised the negotiations the Erdogan government has conducted with the Kurdish nationalist PKK and of Erdogan’s hardline position against peaceful protesters this summer in Gezi Park.

Source: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/12/28/turk-d28.html

Some of the Syrians were huddled against the biting cold in the courtyard of the church; others had congregated beneath the trees of a nearby forest. All had made the treacherous journey from Turkey – crossing the fast-flowing waters of the Evros river – in a bid to flee their country’s war. Then came the white police vans and the Syrian men, women and children were gone.

“Ever since we have lost all trace of them,” said Vasillis Papadopoulos, a lawyer who defends the rights of migrants and refugees. “They just disappeared. Our firm belief is that they were pushed back into Turkey.”

Activists, lawyers, human rights groups, opposition MPs, immigration experts and international officials are becoming increasingly concerned about the heavy-handed tactics Greek authorities use to keep immigrants away.

In a recent report released by Amnesty International, Greece was strongly criticised for its “deplorable treatment” of would-be refugees, especially Syrians desperate to escape their nation’s descent civil war.

Enforced deportations – highlighted by an alarming rise of migrant deaths – have spurred the criticism.

In contravention of international conventions signed by Athens, coastguard officials and police officers have waged a concerted campaign to stop thousands from accessing EU territory via Greece. Illegal pushbacks have been the focus of those efforts, according to human rights groups.

The drive has intensified as Greece – long seen as the EU’s easiest backdoor entrance – has struggled to keep its economic and social fabric together in the face of the country’s worst crisis in modern times. Since prime minister Antonis Samaras’s conservative-led coalition assumed power in the midst of the crisis last year, authorities have faced charges of violently apprehending migrants, beating them and stripping them of their belongings. Special coastguard units – often masked and dressed in black – have been accused of dumping migrants, without any consideration for their safety, in Turkish territorial waters.

“The number and scale of these alleged incidents raises serious concerns,” said Ketty Kehayioylou at the Greek outpost of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. “We still don’t know what happened to the two groups in Praggi,” she said. “No one was ever registered at the First Reception Centre as foreseen by national law and we’ve demanded an investigation.”

The claims come as Amnesty International urged Greece to launch an inquiry into comments by the country’s police chief, Nikos Papagiannopoulos, in which it is alleged he ordered his officers to make the lives of immigrants unbearable.

“If they told me I could go to a country … and would be detained for three months and then would be free to steal and rob … it would be great,” Papagiannopoulos, the highest security official in the land after the public order minister, was quoted as telling officers during a secretly recorded meeting. “We must make their lives unbearable.” The comments were published by the investigative magazine, Hot Doc, on 19 December.

John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s director for Europe and Central Asia, said: “If accurate, the deeply shocking statements attributed to the Greek chief of police would expose a wilful disregard for the rights and welfare of refugees and migrants seeking shelter and opportunity in the European Union.”

With allegations of torture also on the rise, two senior coastguard officials were jailed last month after a military court found them guilty of subjecting an asylum seeker to a mock execution and water-boarding.

The discovery of ever more bodies – in the Aegean Sea and around the land border Greece shares with Turkey – have also raised the alarm. The German NGO, Pro Asyl, recently estimated that 149 people had died this year – an increase attributed mostly to the enormous risks refugees were prepared to take since Greece sealed its land border with Turkey in August 2012.

Following the construction of the fence – a six-mile barricade topped with thermal and sonar sensors – traffickers have focused on ferrying their human cargo to Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

“The shift of escape routes has led to the deaths of many people … mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees, among them many children and pregnant women,” said Pro Asyl in a report documenting the problems faced by those fleeing persecution and war. (pdf)

“The brutality and extent of violations are shocking,” it claimed. “Refugees are being brutally pushed back by Greek authorities. This is happening systematically with the complicity of other European authorities despite the fact that it is against international law.”

According to the EU border agency, Frontex, detections of illegal immigrants in the Aegean Sea have increased by 912% since the barbed-wire barrier went up.

“It is a wall of shame, a hair-raising element of Fortress Europe,” said Aphrodite Stambouli MP of the radical left main opposition Syriza party. “It is outrageous that people in need of international protection should be obstructed from getting it in this way.”

Last week, she travelled to the remote Evros region – passing signs emblazoned with the words “danger: mines” and guards posted at checkpoints – to learn for herself what had happened in Praggi.

“What we know is that 150 Syrians crossed the border because relatives they called, both in Greece and other European capitals, have confirmed that that is what happened,” she said.

“They told them clearly, ‘We are in a village called Praggi, some of us are in the yard of a church, some of us in a forest.’ The police version of events, that only 13 [refugees] were found that day does not add up and that is because they were obviously pushed back over the border.”

Immigration experts say blame lies partly with the rise of xenophobia in Greece, where the virulently anti-immigrant, neo-fascist Golden Dawn party is now the country’s third biggest political force.

But they add that Greek authorities are under immense EU pressure to do the “dirty work” of buttressing what is widely seen as the bloc’s most porous border. “From as far back as 1990, northern Europe’s policy has always been that the south has to assume the burden of stopping irregular migration,” said Martin Baldwin-Edwards, who heads the Mediterranean Migration Observatory in Athens. “That, growing xenophobia, and the disrespect Turkey and Greece have historically shown for migrants’ human rights account for the push-backs.”

Last week Turkey signed a deal with the EU promising to repatriate immigrants who illegally enter the 28-nation bloc in return for its citizens being granted visa-free travel across the union.

“It’s hugely important,” said Baldwin-Edwards. “Turkey is the main point of entry from Asia and the Middle East. The more it is brought into the European ambit and assumes the responsibility of managing Europe’s south eastern borders it will lessen the pressure on Greece.”

In the forlorn villages of squat one-story homes that dot the frontier’s heavily militarised zone, the push-backs have caused consternation even if residents – many hard-bitten nationalists – have welcomed the erection of the wall.

“The fence may have made us feel safer but we also know that all these people want is to pass through,” said Nikos Dollis ,who runs a cafe in Nea Vyssa, the last settlement before the frontier in one of Greece’s most secretive corners. “Their intention is never to stay here. They want to get out, go to other countries in Europe.”

Demonstrators recently protested outside the police headquarters in Orestiada, the gritty town that is the region’s biggest metropolis, in a display of outrage over the incident in Praggi. Among them was Natasa Gara, a human rights campaigner who edits Orestiada’s weekly newspaper, Methorios.

“We want to know what really happened to the 150 Syrians, whose only crime was to want to escape the war,” she said after spending days investigating the affair.

“Are the police saying that everyone in Praggi is mad, that they just thought they saw 150 men, women and children? Because if they are, they are not telling the truth.”

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/24/greeks-protest-refugees-disappear-praggi

Ahmet Yüksel and Erdğan Çakır are facing the danger of extradition in Germany and France respectively and Hasan Biber and Mehmet Yayla in Turkey. All of them have asked for a political asylum. For Ahmet Yüksel and Erdğan Çakır arrest warrants are issued for pending decisions regarding their solidarity actions for Turkish people.

These political prisoners were arrested in 30/7/2013 after a police raid in the offices of solidarity committee for Turkish and Kurdish political prisoners.

Solidarity Committee for Turkish and Kurdish political prisoners, is organizing days of solidarity action and distributes information materials about the 4 political prisoners and their extraditions. Authorities respond to their mobilization with prosecutions and detentions. In the last 24 hours, 7 solidaritarians have been detained at least three times with the accusation of “Environmental pollution”.

Düzgün Yüksel, as a lawyer back in Turkey, he used to take over murder and human rights cases, as a result he was targeted by fascists and he immigrated in Germany. In Germany, with accusations including democratic activities such as the 1^st of May protest, organization of concerts, solidarity actions for political prisoners, distribution of information materials, he was arrested and kept as prisoner in solitary confinement for 4 years. Due to the unsanitary conditions of solitary confinement he got sick and then paroled. In order to not get arrested again in Germany, he immigrated in Greece, asking for a political asylum, but got arrested and his extradition back in Germany was decided. In Germany he will be sentenced to 3 more years in solitary confinement. Ahmet Düzgün Yüksel, in order to stop this injustice against him, is on a hunger strike to the death since 24/9.

Erdoğan Çakır, is a worker in France and has been a rebel for 36 years. He was sentenced to prison for 7 years, because he took part in democratic activities such as the organization of concerts with  the band “yorum”, selling political magazines and going for camping on summer. In order to not serve the 7 year sentence, he immigrated in Greece. When he came to Greece, he was arrested and his extradition to France was decided. Erdoğan Çakır in order to stop this injustice against him, is on a hunger strike to the death since 24/9.

Hasan Biber, was arrested in 30/7/2013. He was a president of a trade union, and because of his syndicalist activities in Turkey, he’s been arrested many times in the past. On September 26, his trial took place at the court of Piraeus, where his extradition to Turkey was decided. Hasan Biber’s file included also an official document of USA. USA asked Greece for every information they have about Hasan Biber, Mehmet Yayla and the rebel from Turkey Bulut Yayla, who was abducted, not long ago, in front of many people in Athens, and then handed over the fascist Turkish Government that asked FBI to take part in the interrogation of the arrestees. This document proves that Greece has handed over even her justice to USA. Today, the decision of Hasan Biber’s extradition is in other words, the validation of his execution in Turkey.

Hasan Biber stated that: “Fascism is not a threat just for our country, but for the countries near Turkey as well. Especially Greece. Your ships, your airplanes, are being harassed. Greek people are underestimated. We are fighting against all these things. And for this reason, I believe that this decision is unjust.” and announced he is going on a hunger strike to death.

Mehmet Yayla was arrested in 30/7/2013. USA asked from Greece every single information they have about him. He started a hunger strike in 29^th of Septemper in solidarity with his comrades’ struggles.

 

http://omniatv.com/blog/3756-few-words-about-the-political-prisoners-from-turkey

Greeks demonstrating for ERT Occupy and Turks demonstrating for Taksim Occupy are chanting together:

“Turkey, Greece, you are not alone!”
“Erdogan, dictator – Samaras, dictator!”

Amsterdam 13 June 2013 Occupy ERT from Reinform NL on Vimeo.