The ESP (Socialist Platform of the Oppressed) activists, who organize street actions every Saturday in many cities of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan in the context of the "We Want Freedom" campaign which was started after the arrestment and imprisonment attacks against our party MLCP and against revolutionary ad socialist newspapers, associations and trade unions in September, organized their 8th "Saturday meeting" on 2 December.
In Istanbul, the theme of the meeting in the Galatasaray Square was "freedom of belief" this week. 100 people participated at the action, including the members of the Democratic Initiative of the Alleviates and the Istanbul branches of Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Associations, which opened a banner "We want freedom of belief!". The demands of the action were the abolition of obligatory religion classes in the schools, which was a product of the 1980 fascist military coup, the cancellation of the "religion" section in the identity cards, and judicial proceeding against the responsible pf Gazi , Sivas and Maras massacres.
Dursun Yildiz, the spokesperson of KESK (Confederation of the Public Employees' Unions), and the relatives of political prisoners also supported the action. The spokesperson of KESK expressed that they will go on a strike on the 14th of December, unless the trade unionists are released, and the budget of the year 2007, which brings hunger and poverty is not changed.
In Adana, the Massacred of 19 December in prisons was condemned and the cancellation of the new Anti-terror Law and the article 301 of the Penal Code was demanded in the action. After the action, the activists sent solidarity cards to the political prisoners.
In Ankara, the activists of ESP and SGD (Socialist Youth Association) carried to the voice of youth against the investigations against students in the universities, to the Saturday meeting in Yuksel Street. At the statement which was read out in the name of SGD, which was one of the organizations that were raided on 21 September, they also expressed that the secondary schools are surrounded with drug-selling, degeneration, gangs and violence and the future of the secondary school students is darkened by the OSS, the exams which determine who will go to university, and they defended the right of the Kurdish youth for education in the mother tongue.
In Izmir, ESP carried the voice of the political prisoners' relatives to the street this week and condemned the state's attacks against the families organized in TAYAD (Solidarity Association of the Prisoners' Families) and TUYAB (Solidarity League of the Prisoners' Relatives).
In Antep, the theme of the action was the NATO Summit in Latvia on 29 November, while in Malatya, the ESP activists carried the theme of seize-fire process by Koma Komaleyan Kurdistan to the action.