PHYSICIANS ON TRIAL
"Right to Health Must not be Tried!"
Physicians Prof. Osman Küçükosmanoğlu and Dr Ömer Eşki are being prosecuted on the grounds of their speeches made in the Tent for a Democratic Solution (of the Kurdish question) in Adana.
Küçükosmanoğlu is a lecturer at the Department of Paediatric Cardiology of the Çukurova University Medical School. Eşki is a board member of the Medical Chamber of Adana, a city on the eastern tip of the Mediterranean.
Colleagues of the two physicians from all over the country united under the slogan "The right to health cannot be tried" and started a signature campaign in protest to the law suit.
Küçükosmanoğlu and Eşki paid a visit to the Democratic Solution Tent in the Şakirpaşa district of Adana in April this year. Their visit came right before a two-day strike organized by health workers on 19/20 April 2011.
During their visit, both doctors addressed the audience in the tent with a speech critical of the government's health policies. They said that the transformation within the health sector pushed through by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was harmful to the public and that the AKP was deceiving the public with this transformation.
On 29 April 2011, the doctors were taken into custody from their work places by teams of the anti-terror branch that followed a request by the Special Authority Prosecutor. The physicians were handcuffed in front of their patients and taken to court. On the same day, they gave their statements to the prosecution and were released pending trial afterwards.
Trial and investigations
Subsequently, the university management launched an investigation about Küçükosmanoğlu pursuant to an instruction leaflet sent by the governorship. At the same time, the Health Directorate initiated an investigation about Eşki.
Additionally, the Adana Special Authority High Criminal Court opened a court case against Küçükosmanoğlu and Eşki over an alleged violation of Article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law on "spreading propaganda for a terrorist organization".
Both doctors are due in court on coming Monday (27 June). Their trial is heard before the Adana 7th High Criminal Court. (HK/VK)