01 July 2009 / International Bulletin / Issue: 83

As long as the Anti-Terror law, which is actually an "anti-society law", will not be cancelled and some basic rights like freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association will not be achieved by a determinant movement of the people, the continuation of the arbitrary dispensation of justice in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan should not surprise anyone at all. Under the conditions of the fascist dictatorship it is quite "normal" that known killers, counter-guerrilla and mafia bosses, rapists and tortures are set free or not even detained, whereas democrats, Kurdish patriots, revolutionaries, and communists are tortured, detained and imprisoned for many years because of struggling for their political aims. Many accused of the Ergenekon trial have been released after a short time, but the big majority of the 10th September prisoners, among them journalists and writers, are still in prison in spite of countless juridical contradictions concerning the obviously police-made "proofs". The reason for this is obviously ideological; this trial is part of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the working class.
After almost 3 years of prison, the 6th hearing of the 10th September prisoners took place on June 26 at the 10th Heavy Penalty Court of Besiktas, Istanbul. The imprisoned communists were brought from prison shouting the slogan "Hope is standing tall" when they were taken to court and on their way back. At this hearing, witnesses were called for the first time before the court. However, their evidence brought to open even more contradictions in the indictment and the crime scene report, so that only the conspiracy against the communists became evident once more.
The court admitted once more the lack of proofs and the arbitrarily of the years-long detention by releasing this time Arzu Torun and Erkan Salduz. As 6 prisoners had been released already at earlier hearings, now 15 of the 10th September prisoners still remain in prison since 2006.
The court decided to postpone the hearing until November 6, 2009.
The broad solidarity shown during all the time with the 23 communists accused in this trial was again expressed by many different political forces from Turkey, Northern Kurdistan and abroad. In addition to the solidarity actions organised under the slogan "we want freedom" in Malatya, Amed, Dersim, Istanbul and other cities before the hearing, also the expressions of solidarity of the labouring women with the female prisoners are worth to be mentioned.
On the day of the hearing, 200 people of more than 20 different organisations participated in a meeting in front of the court, among them many writers, journalists, deputies, trade-unionists, human rights activists and representatives of political organisations. Furthermore, the independent deputy of Istanbul Ufuk Uras, deputy of Istanbul Sabahat Tuncel, the writers Necmiye Alpay, Nazim Alpman and Mukaddes Erdoğdu Çelik and the Turkish representative of Journalists without Borders Erol Onderoglu observed the hearing together with many other people and declared that they will continue to express their solidarity with the prisoners.
International solidarity message came from ASP and CARC from Italy, the Commission for an International Red Aid, AGIF (Germany) and IGIF (Switzerland).