Government wants to sacrifice Osman Kavala and wants to make him an example of what AKP can do to people who resist, even if they are rich businessman. The Islamic Turkish government was hell bent to keep Kavala jailed even if the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered his immediate release
It was 6,5 years ago that the Turkish government decided to get rid of one of the very last surviving green spaces left in Istanbul. What it did not expect was how much the people of Istanbul, and the whole country, loved their trees. The peoples’ resistance to removal of their trees and their community park started the months long clashes all over Turkey was expected by nobody, to be exact. The people’s movement at the Gezi Park, similar to the Yellow Vests resistance in France, has become a symbol of what a people could achieve against neo-liberalism, the privatization of parks, destruction of common spaces in urban areas and the gradually narrowing of freedoms.
The peoples’ uprising gave hope to the Turkish people that they could stand up to brutal oppression of a government. But the government too learned its lessons. And now, it still continues its exacting a revenge to make sure people never get together again to oppose its plans to build shopping malls.
The government of AKP never forgave or forgot that even a simple issue like cutting trees could spark an unexpected huge movement that could topple it.
One suspect in the trial is Osman Kavala, a businessman, charged for “financing the Gezi Protest.” He has been in jail for nearly 2,5 years even though the prosecutor has no evidence or proof of any wrongdoing on his part.
Government wants to sacrifice Osman Kavala and wants to make him an example of what AKP can do to people who resist, even if they are rich businessman. The Islamic Turkish government was hell bent to keep Kavala jailed even if the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered his immediate release. In the previous trial session, knowing the ruling of the Europeans, the court still decided to keep him behind bars openly challenging the ECHR.
There are 16 suspects in this Gezi trial who are charged with various crimes varying from “insurrection against the government” to “Resisting the police.” The prison sentences the prosecutor demands varies from 606 years for some to 2,970 years of imprisonment for others.
In order to stack the case and the court, the police officer, Mevlüt Saldoğan, who killed a demonstrator, Ali İsmail Korkmaz, petitioned the court to be included in the case. His claim? He was hurt while murdering the college student.
The police officer had been found guilty for kicking the demonstrator to death and had received an 11-year prison sentence. However, the police officer feels actually he is the victim here because his foot hurt while he was kicking and killing the demonstrator. Court’s decision to include him in the case caused an outrage by the lawyers of the defendants.
Emel Korkmaz, the mother of the murdered college student protested the court’s decision to include the police officers as plaintiffs to which the Chief Judge replied, mockingly, “I feel your pain.” This open biased mocking and injustice was also protested by the observers in the hall.
There are already 746 people who are on the plaintiff side claiming the Gezi Resistance hurt them.
Including the police officers allows the case and the trial to be stacked with government officials who are friendly to the prosecutor because of the official hierarchy. On the other hand, many police officers included in the case had previously stated they had not seen the defendants committing any acts of violence.
The family and attorneys of the defendants petitioned the higher authorities for the judges to be removed in the face of such brazen biased rulings.
Osman Kavala’s attorney Köksal Bayraktar addressed the court and insisted on rejecting the Judges.
The court had allowed somebody, a hidden witness, to testify against the defendants remotely and electronically with no chance to cross examine his testament by the defending lawyers. The attorney argued that this was against even the fundamentals of justice.
The previous court decision does not allow the defendant attorneys to ask verbal questions or cross examine but demands that the questions be submitted in writing.
Mehmet Durakoğlu, the head of the Bar Association of Istanbul, who is also the lawyer for one of the defendants accused the court of injustice and being biased. He reminded that a key witness had been protected by the court from examination and said, “We do not want this to tarnish our reputation as the Bar Association in justice and have this embarrassment written on our history.”
Other lawyers joined the petition to have the justices removed because of lack of impartiality. Attorney Demir, representing his client said, “You allow a murderer to be included in this trial as a plaintiff just because he is a murderer.” He was referring to the killer police officer.
Lawyer Erdoğan said the judges in the trial were defending and hiding the real criminals of the Gezi protests.
One by one the lawyers stood up to reject the court for injustice. However, the justices who were being rejected finally ruled that there was no need for removing themselves.
On this decision, the lawyers stood up and left the courtroom en masse. They claimed there could not be any justice served with the current judges and the process.
The judges, however decided to continue the trial with or without the lawyers being present.
When the court tried reading the hidden witness’ testimony, the opposition political party CHP’s representative from the National Assembly stood from the listeners’ stand and demanded the trial be stopped because the court was trying to question a suspect without his attorney.
The judges called the sergeant-in-arms to remove the representative but other National Assembly representatives from both the opposition CHP and the other opposition party HDP stood up to object and prevent the representative to be removed from the hall. They shouted, “You have turned this court into a farce. Do you call this a trial, do you think yours is a ruling?”
When they lost control of the situation the judges stood up and left the courtroom.
Later, after returning back to their benches the judges ruled for Osman Kavala to stay behind bars.
The trial will continue in February.
Sendika.Org News
