Sanctions for Detained Student in Prison

Students Ferhat Tüzer and Berna Yılmaz are being detained pending trial for 17 months because they posted a banner reading "We want free education and we will get it" during a speech of Prime Minister Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan at the Romani Meeting in Istanbul on 14 March 2010. Now Tüzer was banned from receiving any visitors for the duration of six months because he sang a folk song.

The nation-wide Cumhurriyet daily reported on 2 September that the student's mother, Hayat Tüzer, was not able to see her son when she came to visit him at the Kandıra No.1 F Type Prison (east of Istanbul) during the religious holidays last week. She was apparently told that her son was not allowed to have any visitors because of "insubordination" constituted by singing a folk song.

"You are the Prime Minister; of course he will address you"

Hayat Tüzer said that is was very painful for a mother not to be able to see her child. She reminded that Turkey was called a democratic and liberal country and criticized that she did not know what to say about the injustice she experienced nevertheless.

Tüzer indicated that the last time she was able to see her son was four months ago. After that, she was not able to meet him during her visits.

"Also the Prime Minister is a father in the end. He has got children. I thought he would understand me but he did not understand me at all. I wrote a letter to Erdoğan but did not receive any reply", Tüzer said.

"Children like Ferhat who are unjustly shown potentially guilty should not be harmed. My heart has been burning for the past two years. (...) Prisons are for criminals but my son did not commit any crime. (...) My son tried to make heard the voice of millions of students", she claimed.

Tüzer added, "My brother, you are the Prime Minister. If he does not call on you should he call on the American president instead? If you are our Prime Minister, he will of course call on you".

Detained for 17 months

Ferhat Tüzer was a second grade student at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Trakya University when he was taken into custody in March 2010 and arrested subsequently together with student Berna Yılmaz. They had posted a banner calling for free education together with another friend during the PM's speech at the Romani Meeting.

Both Tüzer and Yılmaz are facing imprisonment of up to 15 years each under allegations of "membership of the DHKP/C terror organization" (Party and Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of the Turkish People) and "making propaganda for a terrorist organization". The case is pending at an Istanbul court that decided to keep the 22-year-old defendants in detention although the prosecutor demanded their acquittal.

Both students were expelled from university in the meantime and have been detained for 17 months by now. (EKN/VK)