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11th heavy penal court Ankara
21 September 2006! A sunny autumn day. I was walking on the most crowded street of Ankara, Atatürk Boulevard. Some walking fast, some with slow steps, walking down the street which resembles an ant’s nest in front of Kızılay Gima, 2 men stopped me holding my arm. There was a.. for me!ıgnoring the request by me to inform my relatives, I was taken to a car waiting nearby.My adventure started like that. First step was my home, then it was the TMŞ(Struggle with Terror Office). I was aware of where I was taken, from the general politic atmosphere. The declaration that everyone who does not say “happy the one who says I am Turkish” is and will stay as the enemy of Turkish Republic” by the most authorized mouth of the rulers has a meaning. The first adress that this declaration will touch is going to be the socialists, socialist intellectuals. In the speeches I made in the demonstrations, panel and conferences, the published articles I wrote, I collided with “either love or leave the country” applications, the militarist aggressiveness that nourishes this and I didn’t hesitate to stand against these. Goethe said “If you lose your honour, you will lose many thing, ıf you lose your courage then you will lose everything”. Standing with courage against the attacks to humanity was the necessity for each honurable intellectual that think it’s the necessity for being human, as for me also. There was a cost for living as human, I knew that. But in a country that the rulers frequently mention about “the ascendancy of Law”, man falls into the mistake of expecting a “forensic” legal ground.
After a 24-hours arrest, I was taken to the attorney’s office and then the sentry court. The only thing that the judge said as a half-question was “there were organizational documents and many CDs found in your house and clothes”. I answered that they were all given back to my lawyer Ergin Özet. After a 10 seconds surprise he said “at that point you are arrested”. I didn’t learn the legal ground of the arrestment by the attorney’s and the decision of arrestment by the judge. It could not be possible to leave ajar the curtain of mist on my being taken in a panic.
I would understand that more clearly from the developments after. But at that moment Kafka’s words came into my mind; “It seems that even the declaration of arrestment was not necessary”. There was no need to another word; I said “hımmm” in my mind. At that short time the things I experinced totally fit the definiton of Kafka. Then I was taken to Sincan F type No.1. Prison, one of the “5 stars hotels” came into service with effulgent ceremonies that caused the death of many of our people. At the beginning of the millenium that we wanted to face with freedom and human rights and celebrate with fireworks, neither me nor my family and my lawyers could learn anything about of what I was accused for 7 months. All of our efforts collided to the wall of secrecy decision. Human rights and freedom, law, reason… what was the importance of these? Think of a state that blot out the reasons of the accusation from the blamed person and takes the defence right out of his hand. It is known that this type of decisions are applied in Guantanamo that the Afgans are prisoned and Ebu Garib and other jails in Iraq. It is obvious that what the USA wants to blot out behind that secrecy decision. So I am asking, what was tried to be hidden with the help of this decision?
The tragedy goes on. When the indictment had been sent to me,I saw that my belongings and music CDs that were given back to me, were still saving the position of “many organizational documents” in an enigmatic way. I also discerned that the words from a printout that you can write on any PC in any cafe in 2 minutes were added at the bottom. 3 sentences; my name, surname and my “position in the organization”! Don’t consider them as only 3 sentences; this printout is used as so”strong” crime proof that many people in different regions of Turkey were arrested according to that printout and they are under trial now. According to the indictment that printout was seized in an illegal cell of the body politic and it has a “document” quality!
Being seized in an illegal cell according to the indictment, in that “document” it is interesting that any of the written words do not have the single track of something illegal. The names in the document were written in clear identities and moreover the clear identity of the person who wrote this is under the document. As you can unterstand it is like a cognovit petition given to the court. Anyhow the person whose name was written under the document notes that it was not belonged to him and the situation was the event of the police that is accustomed to usually. Moreover interestingly, that document is such a thing that it can enter into the other do in other regions in different formats and names changed by changing their places. So the document is something that can be changed!
Let’s solve it if you can! Whatever you try to say that printout can not have the quality of being a “document”, even it is assumed that the document is right, the person in the document can not be you, and there is no data, information..etc to prove that, nobody hears you and try to test your words even as a formality.
There are “Ankara Criterions” that do not seen in the written laws and they work. In 2003-2004, the Chief of General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt mentioned about the information of 2 different army coup preparations that were written in the 2000-paged diaries of the General of Naval Forces of the time, Özden Örnek in that words; “let’s say I sit by my PC and write something, then say that things are the diaries of Murat Yetkin, can it be possible? It can’t.” And no Attorney showed an effort about doing something official. But somehow, a 3 sentence of a print-out can be the reason of crucifixion regardless of whether it is true or not.
I must also say that, 70-80 arrestments with the same printout in 10 provinces of Turkey were not sent to prison and and except one they were all released. As yet, in trials that ended in 3 provinces were resulted with acquittal. But this decisions do not effect Ankara, and I and Semra Yalçınkaya who is arrested with the same reasons of mine, have been under arrest for 16 months. Moreover, regardless of whether any problem have occurred in trials any event that need warning have happened or not, the trials have been held closed to the public and without audience, like the applications in a war, from November. So as it can be understood, after the decision of secrecy put on the file, this time the transition to secret trials was done in deed as Ankara Agency of Human Rights Association and the Head Office of it have observed and recorded.
When all has been experienced in a trial that has abided on a printout that has 3 sentences, look at the justice that in “Sauna Gang” trial as it’s known in public, held on the same court there is no person arrested now, in spite of the big guns captured and many criminal proofs. And also,in the file as we know as “Atabeyler Gang Trial” there is noone arrested now, in the hearing held in 30 May 2007, the attorney asks for the acquittal of the 11 person; 2 of them were chief of police, 4 of them member of Turkish Army. He says that they did not committed the crime of building a gang for committing crimes, the crime of agreeing for averting Turkish Rebuplic’s duties totally or partially and asks for acquittal with the reason of proof deficiency. The supplies captured in the Atabeyler Gang file were 2 guns, TNT bomb blocks, 7 different bombs, cartridges made by MKE, some plans, an oath text, cryptic communication system… etc. Is there any need for words? It is clear that the trial is never ever on legal ground. As the judges and attorneys are public commissionals, I don’t know that if they have the right producing fake crimes of people, applying the laws according to the person and the content of the trials and if there is a law about excessive modalities of them. But I should note that, although everything I made and said is clear and seen, the people who exercise jurisdiction on me accuse me of illegal organization, and in spite of my demands they run the process in secret. And in Kafka’s expression according to the situation, there would be no need to declare the decision they made in secret.
Hasan Cosar,
January 2008