Metin Lokumcu’s stream is free, it will flow free...

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"We were having a chat with my elder brother Metin by the streamside. We were hearing the voices of frogs on the one side and that of the stream on the other. I was disturbed by the sounds, we could not speak because of them. So, I threw a stone at the frog.

"My elder brother Metin was angry with me. He said to me, 'Why are you throwing stones at it? Don't do it.' He said, 'Look, the stream is making a sound as well. Do we throw stones at it? The frog is a part of that stream and it has the right to live. Don't throw stones.' Since then, I have thrown stones at neither the stream nor at the frog..."

This is Nilgün Lokumcu speaking. She is the sister of Metin Lokumcu, a retired teacher who lost his life during a police intervention in Hopa in Turkey's eastern Black Sea province of Artvin on May 31, 2011.

We are at the house of Metin Lokumcu in the Dereiçi village of Kemalpaşa town in Artvin's Hopa district. Dereiçi, the name of Metin Lokumcu's village, literally means "inside the stream" in English.

We are together with Lokumcu's brother Mete, sisters Nilgün, Ayşe, Neşe, Nilgün, Songül and his son Ulaş.We, together with Filiz Gazi from Gazete Duvar news website and Meltem Akyol from Evrensel newspaper, ask the family a single question: "Can you tell us about Metin Lokumcu?"

At the background, we hear the sound of the stream, for which Metin Lokumcu said, "I am defending my living spaces."

Lokumcu was struggling against the Güngör Electricity company, which was planning to build a hydroelectric power station on the stream. At the protest demonstration that he attended on May 31, he was protesting against the power station, saying, "Keep your hands off my stream."

What Lokumcu was holding in his hand was not a stone, as alleged. He was, in fact, holding a lemon. After his passing, the court, based on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report, has concluded that "no hydroelectric power plant shall be constructed on the stream."

Let's hear the rest from the Lokumcu family...

'Commemorations are now our festivities'

His sister Ayşe Bekar says that her elder brother Metin Lokumcu was always supportive. "What did we live? It is hard to describe my elder brother in a few words," says Bekar, briefly adding:

"My elder brother was everything to us. He was trying to lend a hand to everything, he was trying to come to everyone's help. We were six siblings, one of us has passed away.

"We were at high school. My elder brother was working, he got us through the school. He was so sharing... He would not differentiate people. To him, there were no rightists or leftists. 'Human first,' he would say."

His other sister Songül starts speaking now:

"He would say, 'The neighbor had tea leaves to harvest, let's go and help her.' Let's say someone had to go to hospital. He would drive them.

"He was such a person. Now the commemorations have become our festivities. My elder brother is irreplaceable. What we need to do from now on is to serve the ones who make efforts for our elder brother."

They stop speaking at times, a silence ensues.

We only hear the sound of the stream.

'They took away my father'

Metin Lokumcu's son Ulaş starts speaking now:

"After the press statement here on May 31, he called me and said, 'It is really bad up here. They are attacking fiercely.' I said, 'Dad, it is just a press statement.' People make press statements in Hopa like eating something. It is not something that does not happen in Hopa.

"He said, 'There are different people here, there are people that we do not know.' He said, 'I have never seen something like that, something will happen here.' I said, 'Take care, dad.' He answered, 'Son, if we take care of ourselves, lots of children will get hurt here.'

"The sub-governor said: 'We used all gases, we managed the process quite well. Then, people chanted the slogan, 'Imam's army, get out of Hopa!' In 2016, they were faced with the slogan that we chanted.

"That day, my father, my uncle, our elder brothers and sisters from the village, my peers... We were all shouting, 'Imam's army, get out of Hopa'. Erdoğan was saying, 'What did you want that we did not give you?' We, at that time, were shouting there, 'These people are harming this country.' What did they do to us? They took my father and Hopa's elder brother Metin.

"My father used to say, 'Son, we have not inherited this land from our ancestors, we have borrowed them from our children.' And he raised us with this philosophy. On that day, he just stood there, too. If he had not done it, another person would have died there."

'Don't you have any conscience?'

Ulaş Lokumcu talks about the 13 defendants:

"They all gave misstatements. I would want them to face me... I would want them to face me and tell me, 'They gave me an order and I carried out the order'. I would ask them, 'Don't you have any conscience at all?' Yes, they can lead this case to impunity. But our aim is to set a legal precedent for the use of pepper gas. Pepper gas is a chemical.

"It killed one person, we have this in documents. My father died, he will not come back, but we can make an effect on the use of pepper gas from now on, we can have an effect on the chemicals in it. This is our aim. Other than this... This state is the same state. It was the same state during the Gazi incidents and during Gezi as well. We want to make a notch in history.

'Our family was profiled'

"The Lokumcu family was profiled for some time. Some of our relatives went to a hospital, they heard people saying, 'Don't give them a bed, their surname is Lokumcu...' The 'Lokumcu' surname was on the red list of the state. Our current President said it himself. 'We betrayed İstanbul,' he said. Similarly, after a flood hit Giresun province last year, he again said it himself: 'Did we do something wrong about these hydroelectric power plants?' My father was killed while opposing them."

Sister Ayşe Bekar sentenced to prison

Metin Lokumcu's sister Ayşe Bekar says that she was sentenced to 11 months prison five years ago over a social media post of 'Greetings from Hopa to Gezi.' "I am talking about this for this first time, I have never talked about it before. I shared it with grief for my brother five years ago. It was insulting, they said. The case was concluded in March."

'Doesn't he feel ashamed of it?'

As for brother Mete Lokumcu, he says, 'No one deserves to die'."

"Look, my brother was killed. We were six siblings. How was this team broken? As Metin, Mete, Neşe, Ayşe, Nilgün and Songül, we met with a death in our family for the first time," he says, briefly adding:

"This is so sad. We lost our brother there. We were not ready for this. No one was ready for this. It was not easy to recover from the shock. How could they tell so many lies for a couple of votes in the elections? The lemon is visible in his hand. They said that he was holding a stone. Who said it? The 'tumbler' media, the bootlickers of the palace...

"What was the sense in spraying pepper gas on a person who said, 'Come on, take me, too, and save the country', while his hands were behind his back?They say, 'Metin had heart failure, Metin had asthma...' When he walked in the mountains, we could not catch up with him. As the saying goes, the devil looks after his own...

"The then Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan answered the question of Ruşen Çakır. Çakır said, 'Mr. Prime Minister, a fellow teacher died. How about extending condolences to his family?' The Prime Minister said, 'Would a teacher have a stone in his hand?' Is it normal that a prime minister tell such a lie? Doesn't he feel ashamed?

'Metin was in the mortuary'

"There was a plot, thousands of people might have died apart from Metin Lokumcu. The Imam's Army came to Hopa.

"Next day, I called NTV after the live program of Ruşen Çakır and said, 'Why do you tell a lie for the sake of a couple of votes?'

"'Before you came, Metin was in the mortuary,' I said. The line was cut off immediately. They keep on telling these same lies.

'The PM wanted to call'

"Would a person claim the life of another person for a couple of votes? They sprayed pepper gas inside the ambulance.

"Then, you entered the hospital and the gendarmerie protected the people of Hopa. You fired nearly 2,000 bullets in the vicinity of 3 schools.

"The other person did not even have a pocket knife. They said, 'Bandits came down on Hopa.' Bullies came down on Hopa.

"The principal clerk called a day before and said, 'I am calling on his behalf beforehand, Mr. Prime Minister will call you.' I gave a very harsh answer to this. I do not want to hear such condolences..."

Other family members speak now...

We hear the sounds of the flowing stream... (EMK/SD)