AMED, — Once again the prisoners in the so called KCK (Confederation of Kurdish Communities) trial have expressed their worries for a trial which is so clearly a bluff and unmotivated trial that the only way to keep it going is to continue to postpone it.
Two years have passed since the first arrests of many Kurdish politicians and activists and yet to date not a single “evidence” has been produced in court. Because there is no “crime” and so there could be no evidence.
The operation was designed to be a “preventive” operation: indeed thousands of politicians and activists have been arrested in the hope that after their detention some kind of evidence of some kind of crime would come up.
Of course it could work like that. And yet scores of politicians, elected representatives, activists are being kept in prison for the sake of it. Or rather with the precise aim to prevent them from doing what they have been elected to do, run the cities, municipalities, councils, civil society organisations. In this sense, yes, the operations succeed in being ‘preventive’.
The prisoners, in a long statement write that “This concept of attack on the democratic political struggle of the Kurdish people has been implemented with the approval of Prime Minister Erdogan himself and through police force, militants of the Gulen Sect, and judiciary support. The main purpose of these operations, as the democratic public opinion knows, is to break the will of Kurdish people and to make them submit through their leading institutions and administrators. The attempt to attack on the Kurdish language, culture, identity and demands with all kinds of special warfare methods is the intention to reach a definitive conclusion failed by the September 12 military coup which was trying to destroy the awakening conscience of the Kurdish people”.
Similarly, the statement reads, “April 14 coup aimed at making Kurds disorganized and weak. The mentality is two of a kind in terms of perspective and purpose. Therefore, the trial judging is a conjuncture result of a plan with strategic goals. The trial is therefore an unlawful political conspiracy, as we have expressed many times. Through us, the case intends to judge a people’s struggle for freedom and equality, the democratic politics and all achievements obtained on this democratic ground. This reality necessitates a political approach to the case.”
The prisoners of the KCK trial further state that “Despite everything, in order to respond to the accusation which was ordered to keep the truths hidden, to adjust the reversed facts and to decipher the political conspiracy, we prepared our defences written both in Kurdish and Turkish so that we could take advantage of our right of defense which we individually regard as divine. We also issued a common defense speech which in the same way reflected our common thoughts. However, our demand and right to express ourselves in our mother tongue was denied at the first hearing which first took place 18 months after our imprisonment. Our language was despised and recorded as “unintelligible language”. We once more faced the naked face of the policy of denial and ignore. Our demand for translator was also rejected. We were exposed to unjust accusations and lie allegations and insults during the reading of the indictment which lasted for days. When we were after a very long time allowed speaking, the court didn’t let us to defend ourselves in our mother language. We were forced to abandon our “language and identity”.