by Sarah Glynn
On Tuesday, protestors gathered outside the gates of the European Court of Human Rights to highlight a gross miscarriage of justice being committed by two members of the Council of Europe: Turkey and Serbia. The same day, the Kurdish man at the centre of this case, Ecevit Piroğlu – whose story we looked at last week was hospitalised after 107 days of hunger strike.
Piroğlu is a dedicated socialist who has lived his life for the good of others. Sinan Önal, who knows him personally, describes him as “a completely dedicated activist and revolutionary for the socialist liberation of Kurdish and Turkish people”, adding that “with the Rojava revolution he engaged deeply with the new libertarian paradigm”.
The demonstrators outside the European court heard – in both French and Turkish – how, since 1992, Piroğlu has committed himself to struggles by workers and by the oppressed, and, like so many principled activists in Turkey, has spent time in prison.
He was involved in the Gezi Park protests, and in 2015 he went to Rojava to join the defence against ISIS.
In June 2021, he sought asylum in Serbia. He arrived in Belgrade legally on his Turkish passport, but found that Turkey had issued an Interpol notice calling for his extradition. He was detained by the Serbian authorities and has not been free since. For nearly three years he has been locked up, initially in prison and then in an immigrant detention centre.
His lawyers challenged his extradition all the way through the Serbian legal system, and last May they won the case at Serbia’s Supreme Court, which rejected Turkey’s arguments. But the Serbian authorities continued to detain him without legal cause.
Despite the binding court decision, Serbia’s Minister of Justice has claimed this week that the extradition case is still ongoing.
Amnesty International, who provide a sample letter calling for his release, have observed that there is a risk that Piroğlu could be deported to Turkey either directly or via a third country, and that in Turkey he “would be at a real risk of serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, unfair trial and torture and other ill-treatment.” They also note that he could be detained in Serbia indefinitely.
Piroğlu’s health was weakened by a 136-day hunger strike in 2023 – exacerbated by inadequate medical care. However, with other avenues blocked, on 12 February he began a second hunger strike to protest his illegal prison purgatory. Today, both his legal position and his physical health pose grave cause for concern. Recent images are a shocking contrast with earlier photographs, and campaigners state “His health has deteriorated and his life is in danger.”
