Heavy Punishment Requested for Tribute to Revolutionaries

A trial was opened against Halil Mert, the Community Centres (Halkevleri) Branch President of Samsun on the Black Sea Coast, and another five members of the organization. Mert was taken into custody on 1 June in the scope of an operation against the Community Centres in Samsun.

A total of twelve people were arrested in the course of the operation. As a result, members of the "Student Collectives" and the "High School Students Young Hope", organizations affiliated with the Community Centres, stand accused of 'membership of an armed organization' and 'spreading propaganda for an illegal organization'.

The six defendants are facing prison sentences of up to ten years each. The prosecution will start on 21 September at the Ankara 12^th High Criminal Court.

The indictment seeks prison terms on the grounds of the following actions: showing pictures of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Deniz Gezmiş and his friends at a demonstration against the military coup on 12 March 1971; commemorating Deniz Gezmiş and his friends on 6 May, posting the photograph of Mahir Çayan, member of the Turkey's People's Liberation Party-Front (THKP-C), on a banner on 1 May;  carrying a flag with the silhouette of Mahir Çayan in a demonstration against the military coup on 12 September 1980 on 1 May, throwing eggs at renowned Turkish businessman Ali Sabancı; protesting former PM and President of Turkey Süleyman Demirel and the current President, Abdullah Gül, and providing financial assistance and initiating a letter campaign for members of the Community Centres organization in Adana.

The Community Centres organization criticized the evidence shown for the offences related to an alleged "closeness to an illegal organization" such as the legally distributed magazines Revolutionary Youth, People's Revolutionary Way and New Revolution, the picture of Mahir Çayan, gas masks and spray paint.

In a statement, the Community Centres organization announced, "This is an operation to silence the opposition. This operation is an attack against people who get organized against the Hydroelectric Power Plants (HES), thermal power stations, neo-liberal policies of impoverishment, paid education and robbery in health care". (EÖ/VK)