Appeal against Arrests of SDP and TÖP Members

On Thursday (30 September), the lawyers of ten members of the Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) and the Platform for Social Freedom (TÖP) appealed against the arrest of their clients. A total of 13 members of both legal political groups were arrested on 25 September because of an alleged affiliation with the outlawed "Revolutionary Headquarters Organization".

The lawyers submitted their petition to the Istanbul 10^th High Criminal Court. They emphasized that their clients were officials of a legal party and a legal platform. The organization on the other hand made its name known in the context of armed actions. The joint attorneys claimed that associating their clients with this organization was opposing the facts as well as the law.

The petition mentioned that while in police custody, their clients were asked whether they had attended a commemoration ceremony for Orhan Yılmazkaya, member of the Revolutionary Headquarters organization. Yılmazkaya was killed in the course of a police operation on a private home in Bostancı (Istanbul) on 27 April 2009.

The lawyers, among them Gülizar Tuncer, Sinan Varlık and Züleyha Gülüm, assessed the arrests as a breach of law and demanded their clients' release.

Among the people arrested on 25 September are SDP Chair Rıdvan Turan, TÖP spokesmen Oguzhan Kayserilioğlu and Tuncay Yılmaz, SDP Deputy Chairs Günay Kubilay and Ecevit Piroğlu, Steering Board Member Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu, SDP members Özgür Cafer Kalafat and İbrahim Turgut and TÖP member Semih Aydın.

İHD: Police supplied press with pictures

Furthermore, the Women's Human Rights Committee of the Human Rights Association (İHD) Istanbul Branch filed a criminal complaint at the Sultanahmet (Istanbul) Courthouse against the Istanbul police on Thursday (30 September). The commission accused the police of "supplying footage" related to the Revolutionary Headquarters operation to the media.

Hülya Imak, İHD Istanbul Branch Manager, read out a press release. She mentioned Sultan Seçik, committee member and also member of the SDP Central Steering Board, who is among the detainees: "When she was taken into custody, the police put themselves into the place of the judiciary and violated the presumption of innocence before Sultan Seçik had talked to her lawyer and when the file was still classified. They gathered videos like action films and delivered them to the media", Imak argued.

Turkey was convicted of torture by the European Court of Human Rights in a case filed by Seçik because she had been tortured in police custody in 1997. Imak also referred to police footage of democratic actions in which Seçik had participated. She put forward that the footage was supposedly manipulated by the police, showing Seçik's face together with exploding bombs. "Is this the revenge of the Police Directorate for the past, we ask?"

"We are witnesses and we know that Sultan Seçik is a women's rights advocator, she is a socialist".

Seçik said, "I am a woman activist, I am a socialist woman. We were taken into police custody on 21 September and experienced injustice. I am the only woman among a total of 17 people who were apprehended. There is no evidence, I have not even been asked any proper question so far".

"The people who spread disinformation will have to explain. I am a socialist woman and I am proud to be in the front of this struggle. I was made a target and I will follow this up to the end", Seçik said. (EÇ/EÖ/VK)