In Ankara, activists of the ESP have been sentenced to 43 years of prison in total because of having participated in a protest meeting against the General Health Insurance and apparently shouted "illegal slogans" there.
The detained, among them the representative of the ESP Ankara, Deniz Bakir, are already since March 2006 in custody being accused of having "shouted illegal slogans" at the meeting "Right of Health", organised in November 2005 in Ankara by various professional boards and trade-unions. After 10 months of custody the activists of the ESP were brought to the 11 Court of Heavy Crimes (new name of the DGM (State Security Court) Ankara) on January 17. Although there was not one single concrete proof shown before, the court announced them arbitrarily to be "members of MLCP" and gave them prison sentences from between 1 year and 8 months up to 7.5 years.
The lawyer of the imprisoned activists of the ESP, Rahsan Aytac made the following commetn: „among those things presented to the court there was nothing indicating a membership of the MLCP of the accused".
At the end of the trial, the representative of the ESP Ankara, Deniz Bakir and the other imprisoned activists of the ESP shouted the following slogans. "Long live revolution, long live socialism", "In the isolations cells life, and in life socialism will win", "The ESP has not and will not be silenced" and "The hope is still on its feed".
At the same day, ESP Ankara organized a protest action against the sentences given.
The activists of the ESP, who protested against the fact that 14 activists of the ESP had been sentenced to in total 43 years of prison, were also supported by the familiey affiliated to TAYAD , by HOC , Halkevleri , the Association of the 78er Ankara, IHD , CHD, relatives of the prisoners and the poet Mehmet Ozer.