The Ankara court that oversees the Kobanê trial where 108 Kurdish politicians stand accused of terrorism and incitement to violence cannot rule independently and is forced to go along with the Turkish government’s posing of the defendants as murderers, Kurdish politician Aynur Aşan said during Wednesday’s hearing.
“You cannot make an independent decision. This is imposed on you,” Jin News cited Aşan as saying during her defence. “We are facing trial here today because we act out of our free will.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan painted the defendants as murderers of 52 people, Aşan said. “He has trampled the constitution and committed a crime.”
The series of demonstrations, dubbed ‘the Kobanê protests’, that led to the lawsuit took place on 6 to 8 October 2014 in several provinces throughout Turkey, as a reaction to an Islamic State (ISIS) siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of the same name and Erdoğan appearing to celebrate the town’s demise. The days-long protests resulted in the death of dozens of people, many of whom Demirtaş has said were HDP supporters.
At the time, the 2013 peace process between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had been strained but not yet collapsed. Following the end of the peace process in the summer of 2015, in October 2015 the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation over “crimes against the constitutional order”.
Allegations against the prominent Kurdish politicians, including former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ alongside central executive board members, many MPs and mayors, stem from “the prosecutor ignoring the Peace Process in his indictment”, Aşan said.
Government officials who were on one side of the peace process table “can now be ministers while we are on trial”, former HDP MP Ayla Akat Ata said. “Instead of removing the reasons for the uprising, they put Kurds through an unprecedented darkness after [the peace process failed]. This was not right.”
The trial had “the thousand year fraternity between our peoples”, the former MP said. “Society in Turkey is multicultural. Policies must be suited to this fact, or all victories will remain artificial.”
HDP central executive board member Alp Altınörs said the politicians were accused of being terrorists “because we did not stay silent as a genocide was underway right next to us”.
“These protests happened 1.5 months after the ISIS massacre of Yazidis in Sinjar. What happened there would happen in Kobanê. Did the ISIS leader not issue a fatwa that Kurdish women and girls were legitimate loot?” Altınörs said. “This trial is against protests of a genocide.”
The indictment included an allegation against Altınörs that he “fulfilled the task he was assigned subconsciously with his role as central executive board member”, the politician said. “Could someone be accused of membership in a terrorist organisation ‘subconsciously’? Have you ever seen such a thing?”
The 2nd session of the 25th hearing of the Kobanê case, in which 108 people, including 20 arrestees, including former co-chairs of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and members of the Central Executive Board (MYK), are on trial for the protests organised on 6-8 October 2014 against ISIS attacks on Kobanê, was attended by various politicians, including Green Left Party (YSP) Tunceli (Dersim) MP Ayten Kordu, Istanbul MPs Celal Fırat and Çiçek Otlu, and lawyers from HDP and Lawyers’ Association for Freedom (ÖHD). While some defendants were present in court, others participated via the Audio and Video Information System (SEGBİS) from different prisons.
During the proceedings, the prosecutor presented the final opinion on the arrest investigation, after which defendant Ali Ürküt accused the President of Turkey of exploiting the Kobanê case for political gains during his polarising election campaign.
Subsequently, Alp Altınörs, another defendant and member of the HDP, addressed the court, drawing attention to the European Court of Human Rights’ previous judgement regarding the protests in Kobanê. Altınörs argued against the prosecution’s attempt to criminalise their actions and called attention to the injustice they were facing.
Ayla Akat Ata, another defendant, highlighted the polarising nature of the trial and criticised the government’s handling of the Kurdish issue. She urged for fair and just treatment and called for a reconciliation process to move forward.
Aynur Aşan, in her defence statement, proclaimed that the Kurdish issue stemmed from the problem of Turkish nationalism and stressed the Kurdish people’s legitimate rights. Aşan expressed disappointment with the judicial process and called for the release of all defendants based on the court’s independence and impartiality.
Moreover, Aşan lodged a criminal complaint against President Erdoğan for his statements labelling the defendants as murderers and terrorists, holding him responsible for exacerbating societal tensions.
In her concluding remarks, Aşan declared that the election marked not the end but the beginning of their ongoing struggle, particularly emphasising the importance of women’s rights.
