So typical!

Just as it has done before on any investigation on the state murders, atrocities, corruption and attacks, the Turkish state now has declared a ban on the investigation on the murder of prominent Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci.

Tahir Elci had been fighting for equality, justice and human rights in Turkey all his life. He was the head of Diyarbakir Bar Association. Elci, a father of two, had dedicated his entire life to find justice for the Kurdish minority of Turkey who had been treated as second or third class citizens for more than 90 years in Modern Turkey with no rights whatsoever. Kurds were banned from using their own language, massacred in many atrocities committed by the “modern” Turkish state to convert them to becoming “Turks.” Even mentioning the word “Kurd” was enough to land anyone, including academics, to be imprisoned by the Turkish state. Elci fought against this racist and nationalist discrimination. Today, Kurds constitute up to 25% of Turkey’s population.

However, Elci’s very recent sin committed before his assassination was to pronounce on live TV that the Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK was not a terrorist organization. By law, you are not allowed to utter such ideas in Turkey. The Turkish mainstream journalists or pro-government media are so afraid of even the word PKK that they can’t even pronounce the name and only refer to the Kurdish Worker’s Party as “THE terrorist organization.” People were sent to prison in Turkey because they put the salutation “Mr” in front of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK’s) leader Ocalan. The “criminal” who said “Mr” was supposed to say, following Turkish state’s usage, the “so-called leader of that so-called organization” or simply, “THE terrorist head.” Turkey is presented by the US as a model democracy and gets US support after Israel and Egypt.

Diyarbakir Bar association leader Mr. Elci committed the unbelievable sin of speaking his mind and saying he does not think the PKK is a terrorist organization.

He paid the price.

First, the Turkish state immediately arrested him for speaking his mind. Second, he was arrested for saying this on TV because this amounts to “terrorist propaganda” in the eyes of the democratic Turkish government. When the ISIS goons demonstrated with ISIS flags on Gaziantep streets with convoys of cars, celebrating the Paris massacre, Turkish state was not present to catch or charge the jihadist terrorist goons with “terrorist propaganda,” but when a prominent human rights lawyer, the head of a Bar Association, challenges the official propaganda, that immediately becomes a “terrorist propaganda,” and the lawyer is arrested. Some taboos you do not break in the democratic, US ally Turkey: You never, ever challenge or question what the state says. Or you are dead.

And Mr. Elci is dead. Yesterday as he held a press conference in front of the historic minaret that was sprayed with machine gun fire and damaged by the Turkish special forces and police; he was shot in the head. This damaging of the historic monument was similar to the dynamiting of the Buddha statues by the Islamists in Afghanistan. Even though the historic monument was a minaret, an Islamic monument, the Turkish state’s racist hatred against the Kurds is so strong that, this monument being in a Kurdish area is enough for the Turkish state to attack it.

Damaging historic sites and artifacts in the Kurdish region is not new. During the building of Ataturk Dam in the Kurdish area in Turkey, many historic sites were discovered that went all the way to Hittites or older. Turkish state went ahead and destroyed the sites happy that Kurdistan would not even get attention due to historic findings. If it is in Kurdistan, Turkey will destroy anything.

Protesting the damage done by the Turkish police and the Turkish special forces on this historic monumnet, Mr. Elci was criticizing these attacks in a press conference yesterday. The government had been notified and the security of the press conference was provided by the Turkish state.

Turkish state does not forgive anyone who speaks their mind, especially on live TV.

During the press conference, the chief lawyer for the Diyarbakir Bar Association, had just finished his sentence, saying, “We do not want a war, all we want is peace,” when he was shot on the head from a distance by a sharp shooter. Similar to all the Kurdish people who had been shot by the Turkish military and police sharp shooters in Kurdish towns in the last two months, totaling more than 20. The shot that killed Mr. Elci was fired by a professional from a distance.

As soon as Elci was shot, the Turkish government banned any news on the investigation. Similar to all previous “investigations” where the Turkish state has been involved in corruption, murders, assassinations, tortures, atrocities or mass bombings of the opposition. However, this time, knowing that the Kurds will not take the gunning down of one of their most outspoken lawyers, the same Justice Minister, Bekir Bozdag who oversaw the arrest of Elci only few days ago said, “Trust those who are investigating.” No need to say that his own government and his own appointed prosecutors working under him, executing his very orders are on the job, “investigating.” Yeah, right!

Sendika.Org News (Mehmet Bayram)