Law Apprentice Detained Over His ‘We Don’t Pay’ Tweets

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"Rents, credit cards, consumer loans, bills, seals, debts to banks, notices of levy, notifications, loan sharks! We are surrounded by debt from all sides! Then, we say, 'We don't pay!'"

Law apprentice Yağız Timoçin, a member of the Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD), has been detained over his "We don't pay" tweets.

Yağız Timoçin previously joined the campaign under the hashtag #ÖdemeYapmıyoruz (We don't pay) and posted Twitter messages in protest of the economic crisis faced by laborers amid Covid-19 outbreak.

Speaking to bianet, his attorney Emre Erdal has said that Timoçin is charged with "inciting to disobey the law" and expected to depose today (April 9).

Erdal has also noted that Timoçin was detained from his house yesterday evening with three police vehicles and one armored police vehicle. "He would have gone to depose if they had summoned," the attorney has said.

Timoçin is held in Security Branch of the İstanbul Directorate of Security.

What did he tweet?

Some of his tweets cited as criminal evidence were as follows:

"Capitalism is more dangerous than corona! We don't pay."

"We are condemned to poverty. We are hungry and homeless. We have nothing left to lose! We don't pay."

"Workers are given unpaid leave. They are dismissed. All of their rights are seized. They are condemned to hunger, poverty and death. The only solution is to say 'We don't pay!"

-Arkadaşlar ödeme yapıyor muyuz?

-Hayır!
-O ne?
-Yok#ÖdemeYapmıyoruz pic.twitter.com/s0ImD7tfCp

— Yağız (@YagizTimocin) April 1, 2020

ÇHD: He reminded laborers of their rights

ÇHD İstanbul Branch has released a statement about the detention of Yağız Timoçin. "What they have cited as a criminal evidence against our friend is that he reminded the students, workers and laborers, whose rights have been seized due to the outbreak, of their rights."

ÇHD Adana Branch has also made the following statement:

"The government, striving to pardon drug gangs and abusers, is trying to create a crime out of the 'We don't pay the bills' reactions of people faced with poverty, it is trying to fill its prisons getting empty! The ones who have condemned the people to hunger and death are accusing the ones who do not bow of 'inciting to disobey the law.'!

People who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic previously founded the "We Don't Pay Movement" (Ödemiyoruz Hareketi) on social media, calling on people not to make their payments as it notes that payments of rents, bills, credit debts, student loans and dorm fees have not been postponed by the government. (AS/SD)