On February 20, the 5th hearing of the trial started against the 23 communists who had been arrested and imprisoned in September 2006 in operations carried out against our party in 8 cities took place at the 10th Heavy Penalty Court of Besiktas, Istanbul. {divide}
The prisoners entered the court shouting the slogan "Start the excavations! Judge the murderers!" to draw attention to BOTAS wells in which it is predicted that the dead bodies of many disappeared people had been buried. By this, they pointed out the dirty war crimes of the counter-guerilla state which came into the open once more during the process of the Ergenekon operations. As it was during the previous hearings, the male prisoners came to the court without their shoes in order to protest the imposition on them to search their shoes.
In his defense speech, the communist prisoner Ali Hidir Polat mentiones the International Water Forum that will be held in Istanbul on March 16-22. He expressed that the goal of the forum is to sell out the water sources which is a right of the humanity to multinational companies. He said: "I believe that workers and labourers will defend their right to potable water and mobilise temselves".
The communist prisoners stated in their defense speeches that the counter-guerrilla members are not arrested despite the crimes against the humaniyt that they have committed have come into the open, but they have been kept in prison since two and a half years. They said: "Those who own the means of production make the definition of crime".
The communist prisoner Ibrahim Cicek, chief editor of the newspaper Atilim greeted Muntazer Al-Zaidi, Iraqi journalist who threw his shoe to Bush.
In his defense speech made in the name of our party MLCP, Seyfi Polat explained that the Ergenekon trials do not deal with the dirty war crimes committed in Kurdistan. He greeted the Saturday mothers who started their Saturday actions to find their disappeared sons and dauhters once more within the context of the new evidences denounced at the Ergenekon trials. Polat greeted also the revolt in Greece and the Gaza resistance. He continued his speech with the evaluation of the economic crisis.
The court had to decide to release Soner Cicek and Bilgi Tagac. The next hearing of the trial will take place on June 26.