Commemorating 70s’ Revolutionaries Becomes "Highly Criminal"

The 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance of Fatih, İstanbul declared lack of jurisdiction in the case against weekly Atılım, filed for the article it published article about past leftist revolutionaries Deniz Gezmiş, Mahir Çayan and İbrahim Kaypakkaya. Atılım is accused of “praising the crime and the criminal.”

The case that was filed for the article titled “İbo, Mahir, Deniz, together till victory” published in the agenda section of the newspaper has been sent to the High Criminal Court. The said case began today November 3). 

According to the prosecutor, Deniz and his friends were terrorists and their activities criminal

Editor of the newspaper Sibel Bulut was at the trial, too. Gezmiş, Çayan and Kaypakkaya are still seen as criminals and charged with article 215 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) in the 40th anniversary of the 68 movement.

In the indictment presented at the trial, Gezmiş, Çayan and Kaypakkaya, identified as the leaders of the Youth Movement of the 68 and 71, were described as “terrorists” and their activities as “terror activities”.

“We claim all three of them”

According to the article that brought the case, “They were remembered by the slogans that represented only one channel of the revolutionary movement of 71. Today, we need to claim  the stars of 71 with a perspective that embraces all three channels and that learn from each of these channels. We need to adopt and go beyond their legacy by bringing up the advanced and criticizing the backward aspects of it. Therefore, we are not only claiming Deniz or Mahir or İbrahim, but all three of them. We see the revolutionary leap of 71, together with the Mustafa Suphis’s Turkish Communist Party of 1920s, as our root, as our history. We will follow İbo, Mahir and Deniz till the victory.” (EÖ/TB)