‘We have run out of time for Ebru and Aytaç’

Click to read the article in Turkish

The Freedom to Defense Coordination has once again protested in front of the hospital where death fasting arrested lawyer Ebru Timtik is held.

On a death fast for 237 days as of today (August 26), Ebru Timtik is currently held in Dr. Sadi Konuk Training and Research Hospital in İstanbul. On a death fast for 204 days, Aytaç Ünsal is in Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Training and Research Hospital, which is also in İstanbul.

Both hospitals are pandemic hospitals.

CLICK - 'Doctor doesn't know about the fact of death fast'

While several people joined the protest yesterday, lawyers opened the banner, "May justice be served, Ebru and Aytaç live." They also carried placards with the picture of their arrested colleagues.

'They delayed sending the report'

As reported by the Mezopotamya Agency (MA), Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) Secretary General Nesrin Tuba Tosun said that their only aim was to keep Timtik and Ünsal alive.

Underlining that the failure to release the lawyers despite a forensic medical report and their hospitalization shortly afterwards was unacceptable, Aslan said that 10 days ago, the hospital administration sent a report to the İstanbul Provincial Directorate of Health, indicating that they could not make any medical intervention without the consent of death fasting lawyers.

Aslan added that the Provincial Directorate of Health "delayed sending the report to court by malpracticing and abusing its duty."

'Now, we expect a fair ruling'

Sharing details about the report, Aslan said that the physicians made a comprehensive presentation, indicating that they could not make a medical intervention without the consent of Timtik and Ünsal as it was stipulated by professional ethics and international conventions.

"Physicians say that they cannot do anything," Aslan said: "We also submitted our observations about the report to the court, together with the scientific opinion of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) documenting that their health conditions deteriorate further as long as they stay in hospital.

"We wanted the court to give an interim ruling. 'We gave a ruling about it. The Court of Cassation must rule now,' it said and sent the file there.

"The Court of Cassation must give a ruling now. We have run out of time. We expect the courts, this justice system to give a fair ruling."

'They take revenge through their bodies'

Lawyer Severay Balıkaya also said that the protest of Timtik and Ünsal was a struggle for justice against dozens of losses and usurpation of rights. Underlining that both lawyers were now struggling with their bodies as their all demands for justice were rejected, Balıkaya briefly said:

"In this process, we have waged all types of struggles to prevent it from coming to this current point.

"There is also a struggle for life. For judges, the execution of the sentence in the face of this struggle for life and their disappearance from the community of law take precedence over their right to life.

"The ruling that they give is, in fact, not a ruling of arrest. It is a ruling that aims to end their lives. Today, the verdict given and finalized by the 37th Heavy Penal Court is a verdict to take away their lives.

"They are taking revenge through the lives of two lawyers. So long as they do not say stop to this unlawfulness, it will lead to losses of life." (PT/SD)