‘I want my job back’ protesters behind bars because ‘other measures didn’t prevent them’

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"It's too hard to make sentences including 'law' and 'justice' to describe my and my friends' arrest."

Mehmet Dersulu, one of the people who have been staging the "I want my job" protests in the Yüksel Street of Ankara, the capital, after being dismissed from public service, has sent a letter to bianet from Bolu Type-F Prison, where he is remanded in custody.

In the letter, he explains why they are remanded in custody:

"They can't say there is a suspicion of escape"

"Our country has a 'Yüksel spirit.' Times change, places, change, and, in relation to this, the way of resisting changes. But if there is unfairness, there is always resistance. I won't explain with what hardships this spirit has been formed because it is known. However, many people don't yet know how this spirit was attempted to be destroyed. In my letter, I want to tell you about these...

"We don't know the content of the investigation about us. We don't think it has any content either. They needed to create suspicion of crime by creating a mysterious atmosphere with the verdict of confidentiality.

"What is our 'great crime'? We have learned it from the arrest warrant. It was decided that we should be arrested by saying, 'because the judicial control measures don't prevent them from continuing their demonstrations.' Perhaps for a reason that goes into the field of humor...

"Our great crime was continuing the demonstrations. They can't say 'suspicion of escape' because we had been demonstrating in Yüksel Street for 1,373 days."

The reason for the dismissal

"They showed us the State of Emergency commission as an address. The commission rejected my application. As a reason, it cited a file opened against me 2 years and 3 months after my arrest for the 'I want my job' protests.

"Moreover, the charges that caused our remand are in fact the same as the content of the ongoing case at the Ankara 28th Heavy Penal Court, where we are on trial without arrest. So, we have been remanded in custody with a duplicate file. Now to whom should we tell that action is a constitutional right?.."

"Write our indictment"

"We were detained more than 2 thousand times, fines of more than one million lira were imposed, dozens of lawsuits were filed. Although they tried to terrorize our rightful demands and make us run away, we never left Yüksel, and we won't until we return to our work.

"Now they are trying to make [us] abandon the struggle for our rights with a greater lie of 'terror operation.' Write our indictment and we will explain our rightfulness in courtrooms one again. We will never bow to injustice."

What happened?

Five people who were staging the "I want my job back protests in Yüksel Street, Mehmet Dersulu, Armağan Özbaş, Acun Karadağ, Nazan Bozkurt and Mahmut Konuk and one person who were protesting in Düzce province, Alev Şahin, were remanded in custody on August 22 by the Ankara 5th Penal Court of Peace.

In its decision, the court "considered the amount of punishment to be given because of their actions" and cited "the continuation of the protests despite the previous judicial control decisions" as a reason. (AS/VK)