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On
11th December 2002 police from Scotland Yard’s
SO13 anti-terror branch carried out a series of dawn
raids at several addresses throughout the country.
The raids resulted in the arrests of seven people,
six from Turkey and one from Britain. They were then
taken to the high security Paddington Green police
station where they were interrogated for a whole week.
The official explanation for these arrests was that
the police were carrying out an operation so as to
gather information about the activities of a revolutionary
left organisation from Turkey called the DHKP-C (Revolutionary
People’s Liberation Party-Front), which was proscribed
by the British state in March 2001. Although one of
them was released without charge the remaining six
were charged with membership of a proscribed organisation
and raising funds for a proscribed organisation, which
carries a maximum ten-year sentence. To date the investigation
has focused on activities that are entirely legitimate
and legal within Europe and Turkey itself. Supporting
the struggle for democracy in Turkey and highlighting
the human rights abuses in Turkey within this country
have become criminalised under anti-democratic draconian
legislation. The British state is attacking democrats
so as to justify its murderous wars; the so-called
war on terror is nothing more than a war on freedom
of thought and association. A central part of the
police’s case against the accused is the selling
of a Turkish language magazine called Bread and Justice,
which is entirely legal in Turkey and the rest of
Europe. The police are claiming that money raised
through the selling of this magazine was being sent
to the DHKP-C when in actual fact documents, which
the police have in their possession, show that the
money from the sales of these magazines was being
sent back to the editor of the magazine in Istanbul.
Some of the other evidence in the case includes a
photograph of someone playing guitar at a concert
and surveillance records of people on a May Day march
in London.
Although
all of the accused are out on bail it is with some
stringent restrictions. Two of the bail conditions
are that the defendants are not allow to posses, distribute
or assist in the distribution of two entirely legal
magazines Ekmek ve Adalet (Bread and Justice) and
Vatan (Homeland). The only crime that these magazines
have committed is to be anti-war, anti-NATO, anti-IMF,
being against F-type isolation prisons and being for
the struggle of the people. In a recent development
the police have visited over 80 people asking them
to become informants and to make statements against
the defendants. The police have threatened them with
the loss of their jobs and homes if they do not collaborate
but rather than collaborate they are standing by the
accused.
The defendants are next appearing at Bow Street Magistrates
court on Tuesday 8th April at 10am. We call upon and
democrats, leftists and human rights defenders to
attend the hearing to show your solidarity.
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