Lawsuit against Saturday People over their 700th gathering

The indictment prepared based on a police report requests that Saturday Mothers/People, who demand justice for their enforced disappeared relatives, be penalized for violating the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations.

Ayça Söylemez

Lawsuit against Saturday People over their 700th gathering

* Photo: Hayri Tunç, Gazete Fersude

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

A lawsuit has been filed against 46 people who were detained during the police attack targeting the 700th gathering of Saturday Mothers/People at Galatasaray Square in Beyoğlu, İstanbul in August 2018.

Charged with "unarmed participation in unlawful demonstrations and marches and refusal to disperse despite warning," they now face a possible sentence for violating the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations.

CLICK - Police Attack Saturday Mothers with Plastic Bullet

The only evidence cited in the indictment is the report written by the police on the day and place of the incident and a document of inquiry.

Signed by Prosecutor Fatih Dönmez, the seven-page indictment names the defendants in five pages while the other two pages are allocated to the police report and the allegations of the prosecutor each.

Indictment alleges 'marginal groups made a call'

In the report prepared by the Beyoğlu District Security Directorate, it is indicated that it was known that the relatives of the disappeared would hold a demonstration in the 700th week of their weekly sit-in protests and this demonstration was announced on social media beforehand. The report then moves on to allege that unions and political parties as well as some "marginal groups" made individual and collective calls to the demonstration.

The police report says that in order for a meeting to be held, a permission shall be obtained from the local authority 48 hours before the meeting. It is alleged that the sub-governor's office "banned the meeting with the aim of protecting national security and public order, preventing the committal of crimes and protecting public health and public morality or others' general rights and freedoms." However, the demonstration of Saturday Mothers/People would not be a meeting, but a press statement.

The indictment prepared on the police report claims that Saturday Mothers/People and the ones who were there to support them did not disperse despite warnings and they were detained for this reason.

Files of MPs separated

The following people now face a lawsuit over their participation in the 700th week: Koray Çağlayan, Koray Kesik, Leman Yurtsever, Levent Gökçek, Lezgin Özalp, Maside Ocak, Mehmet Günel, Muhammed Emin Ekinci, Ayça Çevik, Besna Koç, Cafer Balcı, Can Danyal Aktaş, Cihan Oral Gülünay, Cüneyt Yılmaz, Deniz Koç, Ercan Süslü, Ezgi Çevik, Faruk Eren, Fecri Çalboğa, Ferhat Ergen, Gamze Elvan, Hakan Koç, Hasan Akbaba, Hasan Karakoç, Jiyan Tosun, Kenan Yıldızerler, Murat Akbaş, Murat Koptaş, Onur Yanardağ, Osman Akın, Özer Oymak, Özge Elvan, Ramazan Bayram, Rüşa Sabur, Sadettin Köse, Adil Can Ocak, Ahmet Karaca, Ahmet Süleyman Benli, Ali Ocak, Ali Yiğit Karaca, Atakan Taşbilek, Ataman Doğa Kıroğlu, Saime Sebla Arcan, Sinan Arslan, Ulaş Bedri Çelik, Volkan Uyar.

It is also decided that the case files of the MPs who were there to attend the demonstration be separated from others as they have legislative immunity.

The indictment has been accepted by the İstanbul 21st Penal Court of First Instance. The day of the first hearing will be announced in upcoming days.

What happened?

It was 25 years ago on May 27, 1995 that Saturday Mothers/People gathered for the first time at Galatasaray Square for the ones disappeared in custody. The first sit-in protests started after the deceased body of Hasan Ocak, who was taken into custody on March 21, 1995, was found in the Cemetery of the Nameless after being tortured.

The Saturday protests at Galatasaray Square were interrupted for an indefinite period of time on March 13, 1999 due to heavy police intervention for the last three years. The interruption continued for the next 10 years.

The silent sit-in protests of Saturday Mothers/People, which they started again at Galatasaray Square in 2009, continued until the police intervention in August 2018.

In the 700th sit-in on August 25, 2018, the police attacked the crowd with rubber bullets, detaining several relatives of the disappeared. The detained were released after giving their statements on the same day.

Speaking about the incident, Human Rights Association (İHD) İstanbul Chair Gülseren Yoleri said that the 700th week gathering was "arbitrarily banned with a decision signed by the Beyoğlu Sub-Governor within the knowledge of Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.

Detained in the 700th week, Maside Ocak said, "In 1997, we used to be detained as two generations; today, we were detained as three."

Maside Ocak, the elder sister of Hasan Ocak, whose dead body was found in a common grave after he was detained on March 21, 1995, said that her 82-year-old mother Emine Ocak was attempted to be detained as well, she was not taken to the police bus at the last minute, she was pushed with police shields and her arms were bruised.

According to the data of the Truth Justice Memory Center, 1,352 people have been subjected to enforced disappearance in Turkey.

(AS/SD)

Ayça Söylemez

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Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Felsefe Bölümü mezunu. Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi Sosyoloji bölümünde yüksek lisans yaptı. Marmara Üniversitesi İletişim Bilimleri’nde doktora yapıyor. Vatan, Akşam, HaberTürk ve Hürriyet gazetelerinin yazıişleri ve dış haberler bölümünde çalıştı. Güncel Hukuk dergisinde yazıları yayınlandı. BirGün’de Anonim adlı köşeyi yazıyor. 2011’den bu yana bianet’te İnsan Hakları Editörü.