Gezi trial begins again today

Photo: Barbaros Derya Sezen / flickr

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The Gezi trial begins again today (May 21) as the court of appeals has overturned the verdicts of acquittal given by the local court. Arrested for 1,298 days, businessperson and rights defender Osman Kavala and 15 other defendants will appear before the judge at the İstanbul 30th Heavy Penal Court in Çağlayan on charge of "attempting to overthrow the government."

Before the hearing at 10 a.m. today, the Taksim Solidarity platform will make a statement for the press in front of the courthouse, chanting the slogan, "Gezi is the hope, hope cannot be put on trial!"

Ahead of this hearing, we have compiled the judicial process:

Who is on trial?

Osman Kavala, Mücella Yapıcı, Can Atalay, Tayfun Kahraman, Ali Hakan Altınay, Yiğit Aksakoğlu, Yiğit Ali Ekmekçi, Çiğdem Mater Utku and Mine Özerden, who were acquitted in the first trial; and Can Dündar, Mehmet Ali Alabora, Ayşe Pınar Alabora, Gökçe Tüylüoğlu, Handan Meltem Arıkan, Hanzade Hikmet Germiyanoğlu and İnanç Ekmekçi, whose files were separated, but have been merged again afterwards.

Though he was acquitted in the Gezi trial, Osman Kavala has been behind bars in Silivri Prison at the outskirts of İstanbul for 1,298 days as of today. Yiğit Aksakoğlu also served 220 days behind bars in this period.

Who are the aggrieved parties?

In the Gezi trial, where rights defenders were acquitted, the members of the 61st term cabinet, which was established in 2011, were referred to as the complainant aggrieved parties in the indictment.

On the list of the aggrieved parties were the then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the then Deputy Prime Ministers Bülent Arınç, Ali Babacan, Beşir Atalay, Bekir Bozdağ, Emrullah İşler and the then Ministers Binali Yıldırım, Fatma Şahin, Egemen Bağış, Nihat Ergün, Faruk Çelik, Erdoğan Bayraktar, Ahmet Davutoğlu, Taner Yıldız, Suat Kılıç, Mehdi Eker, Hayati Yazıcı, Muammer Güler, Cevdet Yılmaz, Ömer Çelik, Mehmet Şimşek, Nabi Avcı, İsmet Yılmaz, Veysel Eroğlu, Mehmet Müezzinoğlu, Zafer Çağlayan and Sadullah Ergin.

After founding the Future Party, Ahmet Davutoğlu announced that he withdrew from the files of criminal cases related to the crimes committed against him personally and were not of public nature, especially from the trials for insult, as an aggrieved party.

DEVA Party Chair Ali Babacan also said, "I am not a complainant in the Gezi trial, nor am I an intervening party. Thinking that they were aggrieved, the prosecutor wrote the names of all members of the then government one by one. In our judicial system, there is no such thing as withdrawing from the position of an aggrieved party. We sat and talked with our fellow legists."

What are the defendants charged with?

In the first 657-page indictment, Gezi was defined as "a resurrection for coup". The defendants were accused of "organizing and funding the protests." They were charged with "attempting to overthrow the government", "damaging property", "damaging places of worship and cemeteries", "violating the Law on Firearms, Knives and Other Tools", "aggravated plunder" and "violating the Law on Protecting Cultural and Natural Assets."

In reversing the acquittals, the court of appeals has also demanded that a criminal complaint be filed against the defendants on the grounds that they violated the Law no. 2911 on the Meetings and Demonstrations.

According to the indictment, 16 defendants separately face 606 years to 2,970 years in prison on the offenses charges.

What has happened till today?

In July 2013, 26 people, including Mücella Yapıcı from the Chamber of Architects and Ali Çerkezoğlu from the İstanbul Medical Chamber, were detained. While they were released following their statements, the rights defenders faced a lawsuit for "founding and leading an organization" in March 2014. All defendants were acquitted in the ensuing trial heard by the İstanbul 33th Penal Court of First Instance on April 29, 2015.

Afterwards, it was understood that prosecutor Muammer Akkaş was carrying out an investigation against the people who are currently on trial. Akkaş was also the person who gave the instruction to wiretap the rights defenders' phones. However, he was dismissed as part of an investigation into the December 17-25, 2014 operations and fled Turkey.

İstanbul Public Prosecutor Yakup Ali Kahveci took over the file after Akkaş. The investigation, which also consisted of the evidence collected by Akkaş, was completed in 2019; the first hearing was held on June 24. Arrested pending trial, Yiğit Aksakoğlu was released at this hearing.

A fews days after the second hearing, the Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) changed the court board hearing the case.

Accordingly, Galip Mert Perk was assigned as the Presiding Judge and Talip Ergen as a member of the court board. While the HSK did not change the place of duty of senior member Ahmet Tarık Çiftçioğlu, who had ruled in favor of the "continued arrest" of both Osman Kavala and Yiğit Aksakoğlu, the member of the court board who had expressed a dissenting opinion to the related ruling was assigned to another court.

Examining the individual application of Osman Kavala, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) pronounced its ruling on December 10, 2019 and ruled that Kavala should be released immediately.

At the final hearing on February 18, 2020, all defendants, except for the ones who were abroad, were acquitted. Despite this acquittal and the ECtHR judgement, Osman Kavala was arrested again on another charge.

Why are they on trial again?

Following the acquittals in the Gezi trial, President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the group meeting of his party. Targeting Kavala, he said, "The person who stirred up Gezi was behind bars. They tried to acquit him with a maneuver."

Shortly after this statement was made, the Board of Judges and Prosecutors launched an inquiry against the three judges who were the members of the board of the İstanbul 30th Heavy Penal Court.

The prosecutor's office also appealed against the verdicts of acquittal. Public Prosecutor Edip Şahiner demanded that the acquittals be reversed.

The 3rd Penal Chamber of the İstanbul Regional Court of Justice, the court of appeals, reversed the rulings of acquittal handed down by the local court, the İstanbul 30th Heavy Penal Court, on January 22, 2021.

Referring to the charges brought against the defendants in the indictment, the court justified its reversal by indicating that the pieces of evidence such as the defendants' social media posts, press statements and slogans chanted were not considered in handing down the ruling.

In ruling for the reversal of the acquittals, the court of appeals did not take the ruling of right violation given by the Constitutional Court for the pre-trial detention of Yiğit Aksakoğlu in the Gezi trial.

In its related ruling on Yiğit Aksakoğlu, the Constitutional Court concluded, "It is an undeniable fact that holding and organizing nonviolent peaceful demonstrations is safeguarded within the scope of the right to hold meetings and demonstrations. [...] Therefore, holding, organizing and joining peaceful meetings shall not be subject to charges."

The top court also noted that "...there was no indication suggesting that the applicant was trying to turn Gezi incidents into a widespread and violent revolt against the government." (HA/SD)