Thirteen members of the Thousand Youths for Palestine group, who were arrested for protesting against Azerbaijan's state-owned company SOCAR, which supplies fuel to Israel, were taken to the Istanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan. After being held for several hours, all of the detainees were released the same day.
Twelve of the protesters were released after providing statements to the prosecutor's office, while the remaining individual was referred to the court for further proceedings. The judge ultimately released the last detainee.
According to the lawyers of the rights defenders, the detainees were denied food and water from yesterday evening until 2 pm today, sparking concerns about their well-being during their detention.
Pro-Palestine protesters arrested for attack on SOCAR
Other supporters of the Thousand Youths for Palestine protested the detentions outside the Çağlayan courthouse in Istanbul. Dilara Şengül spoke out, saying, "Our detained friends shouted from behind bars: 'SOCAR feeds the occupier with its oil and increases its wealth with the massacre of the Palestinian people.' While Rafah lies in ruins, with not a single house left standing, and Gaza's streets are filled with the rubble of destroyed homes; it's absurd to criminalize those who refuse to be complicit in feeding the occupier. Our friends are demanding accountability for the Palestinian people displaced, burned, and massacred in the tent city, while the powerful are asking us to account for the broken door of SOCAR, enriched by genocide. It's not our friends, the voice of the Palestinian people, who are to blame, it's not us! The guilty ones are those who carry barrels of oil and enrich themselves by cooperating with Zionist Israel."
Gizem Özdemir added, "If the oil that fuels the jets bombing Gaza is coming from here, we'll expose it. They're afraid of us, let them be afraid! We'll take our friends and go back in front of SOCAR, TÜSİAD, and MÜSİAD. We won't back down."
(HA/DT)
