Margaret Owen OBE, patron of the Peace in Kurdistan campaign and retired human rights barrister, is currently in Istanbul with five other prominent lawyers from the UK to observe the ongoing KCK trial of 46 Kurdish lawyers. She will be blogging this week with news and updates from the trial, and below is her first piece.
Blog 1: Monday 16th September, 2013
We, five UK lawyers forming the UK delegation to observe and report
on the trial of the Kurdish lawyers, have once more arrived in sunny
Istanbul, to attend its 6th hearing, tomorrow, Tuesday.
This evening we will be gathering, with the other lawyer delegations
from several European countries - notably, France, Germany, the
Netherlands - at the offices of the Istanbul Bar Association to be
briefed by the defendants' lawyers on developments since we were last
here in June. And to learn from them what are the most likely
outcomes from the proceedings in the Prison Court at Silivri Prison.
A long hot two hour drive from the city.
The 45 Kurdish lawyers,whose client is the Kurdish leader, Abdullah
Ocalan (incarcerated for the last 13 years on the island of Imrali)
are charged under the anti-terror law, accused of being members of an
underground terrorist "Leadership Committee"' headed by the Kurdish
leader. But, as I have written in previous blogs, these hearings are
in fact political trials; the evidence is extremely flimsy, indeed, as
the defendants' lawyers continually demonstrate, totally fabricated.
What is deeply shocking about these trials, and common to so many
trials under the Turkish judicial system, is the common practice of
pre-trial detention. It is now nearly 2 years since these lawyers
were arrested and imprisoned. Although over a long series of short
hearings, several lawyers are bailed each time, still 16 lawyers
remain in prison.
Again and again, at each hearing (only one day is allowed for this
case and adjournments are at 3 monthly intervals) , the lawyers
defending the lawyers argue for the immediate release on bail of all
those in detention, and they will argue again on the same grounds tomorrow.
The use of pre-trial detention has until now been a side issue in the
hearings. We predict that tomorrow the lawyers' lawyers will make it
a central one, and ever more robustly demand the release of all the
remaining detainees, either on bail, or, better still, the dropping of
all the charges and the acquittal of all the 45, so that they can
return to their professional work, and be again united with their
families.
But this week the GEO-political scenario is hugely changed, and may
well have some bearing on how the judge, of course a servant of the
State and the AKP government, will determine this long on-going case.
The oppression, arrests, detentions of the Kuridsh lawyers
representing the Kurdish leader, the detention of over 10,000
political prisoners, clearly breach international human rights laws.
But right now the AKP government is supposed to be in peace talks with
Ocalan, and on his instructions, the PKK
has started to withdraw its militias back to Northern Iraq. If
Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan is serious about making peace, then
his party would have to implement their side of the agreement: inter
alia, to release the political prisoners; to reform, in consultation
with the BDP and Kurdish civil society organisations, the
Constitution; to change the electoral "threshold", permit education in
the kurdish language, and curb the excessive oppressiveness and
violence of its police force that has acted so viciously in the last
months against peaceful protesters across Turkey. Turkey also needs a
total overhaul of its medieval justice system which is quite incapable
of delivering justice and where judges and prosecutors are far from
independent.
But Istanbul today already looks a different place to the city we were
in last June. One is aware of the many Syrian refugees among the
crowds. Also of the change in the behaviour, attitudes of the
remaining protestors as a consequence of the increased violence and
oppressive practices of the police.
They are using pepper-spray rather then water-cannon to clear the
streets of those protesting the killing of 22 year old Ahmet Atakan
on September 10th in Antakya. We have learnt that there has been a
clear shift in policing, with "scorpions" (small tank-like cars from
whose roofs an armed policeman can shoot) now able to chase
protestors into small side streets and residential areas.
We all hope that the peace process will not be interrupted. In spite
of the complexities of the Syrian crisis and Turkey's problem in
relation to the Syrian Kurds, attacked by both the Assad regime and
many of the diverse groups in the Syrian opposition supported by
Turkey.
I realise as I write that these contextual factors are not legal, but
political but they do have a bearing on how the state-employed judge
and prosecutor will decide tomorrow's trial, so I cannot avoid these
References. This is after all a Political Trial. Lawyers in these circumstances
are made powerless, and discredited. Which is why it is so important
that we have international lawyer delegations to observe and report as
we will do tomorrow.
- Margaret Owen
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