Radio Journalist Erdogan in Detention for Third Year

The Istanbul 10th Heavy Penal Court continued its hearing in the trial against 23 people accused of membership in or leadership of the illegal Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) on Friday, 26 June.

Operations in September 2006

The defendants were arrested during operations in around 10 provinces, including Manisa, Istanbul and Antalya, between 8 and 11 September 2006. They face up to 40 years imprisonment, some of them standing accused of "attempting to change the constitutional order by force".

Those detained include Füsun Erdoğan, the broadcasting coordinator of the Istanbul Özgür Radyo ("Free Radio") station, and editor of the Atılım newspaper, İbrahim Çiçek.

Others are Bayram Namaz, Ziya Ulusoy, Arif Çelebi, Sultan Ulusoy, Adem Serkan Gündoğdu, Ali Hıdır Polat, Seyfi Polat, Mehmet Ali Polat, Erkan Özdemir and Naci Güner, the last being accused of being the General Secretary of the organisation.

Of the 23 defendants, 17 have been in detention. 22 of the defendants attended the hearing.

At the hearing on Friday, the court decreed the release of Erkan Salduz and Arzu Torun, who will be tried without detention.

Witnesses heard

The court heard witnesses from the Ocaklı village in the Nazilli district of Aydın, western Turkey, where defendant Naci Güner owns a house.

Village administrative official Ali İhsan Demiralay and neighbours Şükrü Tanrıverdi, Ufuk Öztürk and Mehmet Beşir Çiftçi said that they knew Güner as "Ali Taş" and Fatma Siner as his wife "Hanım Taş", and that both were known as helpful people not related to any suspicious events.

Demiralay said that he had been called to the house in order to monitor the search, which around 30 police officers took part in. He said that he had seen around six people lying on the ground with their hands cuffed behind their backs, that he had seen part of the search, but not of all the rooms, that the police were still in the house when he left, and that he signed the police report without reading it in detail.

Two witnesses identified Seyfi Polat as the person they knew as the nephew of Güner.

Appeal for release

Joint attorneys argued that their clients have been held for 2 years and 8 months. They accused the police of deliberately trying to draw out the case, as four officers called to the hearing did not appear.

The next hearing will be on 6 November.

Accusation of arbitary police reports

Lawyer Mihriban Kırdök said, "The police continues its old habit of writing reports the way it wants...They are documents that are well-known to be produced against dissident individuals. Why did the police not, as they claim, raid a congress, but caught people in different places?"

Arif Çelebi said that the reports on the search and arrests were prepared later, citing as evidence the fact that some reports were signed by up to 30 officers, while others had fewer signatures. He has filed a criminal complaint against officers for producing fake documents.

Lawyer Müslüm Akkuş emphasised that it was not clear from which computer a 40-page print out claimed to belong to the MLKP had been taken. He pointed out that a Supreme Court of Appeals decree ruled that photocopies could not be used as evidence, a point also made by other lawyers.

The lawyers further said that Erdoğan and Çiçek had not, as is being claimed, been arrested in Nazilli, but had been arrested in Izmir and then brought to Nazilli district.

"Attack on freedom of expression"

Erdoğan, who faces a life sentence in solitary confinement and with no possiblity of parole, demanded her release, saying that she was a socialist journalist who had been detained for three years on the basis of a document whose origin was not clear:

"I object to this situation and continue to object to it. With us, the organisations we work for are being put on trial: Özgür Radio and the Atılım newspaper. The freedom of thought and expression is on trial."

The hearing was attended by many people wishing to monitor the trial, including Istanbul MPs Ufuk Uras and Sabahat Tuncel, as well as writer Nemciye Alpay. (EÖ/AG)