Aksakoğlu on His 150th Day in Prison: I Still Believe That We Will Be Acquitted

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Yiğit Aksakoğlu, Bernard van Leer Foundation's Representative to Turkey, was arrested on November 17, 2018. Aksakoğlu could learn the charges pressed against him on February 20, 2019, when the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office issued the indictment.

The indictment has alleged that businessperson Osman Kavala and 15 other people including Yiğit Aksakoğlu were the "top management" responsible for organizing the Gezi Park Protests in 2013. The prosecutor has demanded that Kavala and Aksakoğlu be given aggravated life imprisonment. The Gezi Indictment was accepted on March 4, 2019.

Aksakoğlu has been in Silivri Prison for 150 days. Sending a letter from Silivri, Aksakoğlu has responded to the charges pressed against him:

"Along with Osman Kavala, I am the other arrested defendant of the 657-page Gezi Indictment, which was issued against 16 people in early March. Though this 657-page text is called a bill of indictment, I don't think that it goes beyond being a 'bill of implication.' There is an attempt to create a sham perception by constantly repeating implications limited to a few points.

"As an indication of a fertile imagination as well, a new position called 'influence agency' is created. But, neither concrete allegations, nor evidence to support them can be put forward. Still, they don't hesitate to demand aggravated life imprisonment for 16 people.

'I am tried for a website where I didn't publish anything'

"I had a 35-second phone call with a fixed line registered in the name of Osman Kavala. My only call with him is this one, but there is no content.

"In the 657-page indictment, there is a chronology of Gezi incidents. Accordingly, it is said that the park was emptied on June 16, 2013. Moreover, it is also constantly repeated that these 16 people had been making plans since 2011 and waited for the 'right moment.'

"150 phone calls made from June 21, 2013 to December 2013 are the only evidence put forward about me in the indictment. To prove that we had been planning Gezi since 2011 and I was also involved in this process, they refer to tapes captured five days after the park was emptied.

"In fact, all through these 657 pages, the dates of my phone calls are almost never mentioned and there are constant references to these phone calls as if they had been made before the incidents.

"Similarly, throughout these 657 pages, it is mentioned that I held meetings upon the instructions and directions of Osman Kavala. There is, of course, not a single evidence proving that there was such an instruction or direction. There isn't a single message. There are indeed no meetings.

"In 100 pages of 657-page indictment, there is a reference to offenses committed against the complainants across Turkey. The majority of these offenses are damage to property, plunder and injury. The most explicit charge brought against me is that I bought the domain name www.siddetsizeylem.org (Protest without violence).

"It isn't something that I published on this website. Because I didn't publish anything. But, in these 657 pages, 198 methods of nonviolent protest are explained quite clearly. There is no evidence as to what kind of offense I committed by buying a domain name.

"There is no evidence regarding our links with damage, plunder and injury, either. But, a phone call where I mentioned a couple of nonviolent protest methods is used over and over again without giving its date and an impression is created as if it was before the incidents. There is, of course, not a single evidence regarding the relation of these incidents with me.

'It is hard to understand why I am in isolation'

"Another weird charge is to organize meetings to spread the Gezi incidents in Anatolia. The only evidence of it is that I was the moderator of a meeting held in the European side of İstanbul on June 27 regarding what happened in Gezi. This meeting isn't the only meeting held after Gezi, holding meetings isn't a crime, being a moderator isn't something illegal. To spread Gezi in Anatolia with a single meeting isn't possible, either.

"After reading the 657 pages over and over again, I cannot even understand why I have been held in isolation in a 10-square meter cell for 150 days, let alone why I face aggravated life sentence."

'I still hope that we will be released soon'

Concluding his letter, Aksakoğlu has said,

"Until the first hearing on June 24, I will think about how I will prove that I am not a member of an organization. On the other side, I will also not give up on looking for someone to hold responsible to answer my seven-year-old daughter, who asks, 'What crime did you commit? Why are you in prison?'

"On the 150th day of my arrest and on the 532nd day of Osman Kavala's arrest, I still believe and hope that we will be released soon and all defendants will be acquitted, as it is supposed to happen in a rule of law."

(EMK/SD)