War Resisters' International condemns
persecution of Turkish feminist antimilitarist
Pinar Selek
09
February 2011
War Resisters' International (WRI), an
international network of pacifist and
antimilitarist organisations with more than 90
affiliates in more than 40 countries, condemns
the persecution of Turkish antimilitarist and
feminist Pinar Selek.
For 12 years now, Pinar Selek has been under
prosecution for a crime she did not commit and
in connection with which there is no evidence
against her - the so-called bombing of the Spice
Bazaar in Istanbul on 09 July 1998. Pinar Selek
was arrested in 1998, tortured during
investigation and spent two and a half years in
prison.
The only link asserted by the prosecution
between Selek and the explosion was a statement
by Abdulmecit Ozturk extracted under torture and
soon withdrawn. Ozturk himself has been
acquitted. Several experts came to the
conclusion that there had been no bomb – the
explosion had been caused by a gas bottle. The
only expert who claimed that the explosion had
been caused by a bomb was a police informer at
Istanbul university.
On 23 May 2008, after 10 years of trial, Pinar
Selek was acquitted. However, the prosecution
appealed to the Supreme Court, which ordered a
retrial on grounds of procedure. When the
acquittal was upheld, the Supreme Court again
ordered a retrial, and demanded that Selek be
sentenced to 36 years' imprisonment. Even the
Head Prosecutor opposed the retrial, but this
was overridden by Supreme Court Criminal General
Assembly on 9 February 2010. The case was again
referred to the court in Istanbul.
Penar Selek's real “crime” is a different one.
As a sociologist, and as a feminist and
antimilitarist, she tried to understand the
Turkish-Kurdish conflict by researching both
sides of the conflict, including conducting
interviews with members of the PKK. When
investigated under torture, she still refused to
give the names and contact details of her
Kurdish interviewees.
The outcome of her research on the
Turkish-Kurdish conflict was finally published
in 2004 under the title Barışamadık [We Couldn’t
Reconcile] (2004, Ithaki Publishing).
The persecution of Pinar Selek is only one
example – although an exceptionally shocking one
– of the persecution of antimilitarists in
Turkey. Some other examples:
* in 1999, Turkish writer Nadire Mater was put
on trial for her book Mehmedin Kitabi (Voices
from the front), about the experience of Turkish
conscripts in the war in Kurdistan. The book's
distribution in Turkey was banned. In September
2000, Nadire Mater was acquitted.
* In 2005, during the imprisonment of gay
conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan, journalist
Perihan Mağden wrote an article on conscientious
objection as a human right, published in the
weekly news magazine Yeni Aktuel. Mağden too was
charged, under Article 301 of the
Turkish Penal Code, but she was acquitted on 27
July 2006* In 2008, Turkish conscientious
objector Halil Savda was sentenced to six
months' imprisonment under article 318 of the
Turkish Penal Code for a solidarity declaration
with Israeli conscientious objectors in
front of the Israeli embassy on 1 August 2006.
* In June 2010, Halil Savda, Gökçe Otlu Sevimli,
and Zarife Ferda Çakmak were sentenced to six
months' imprisonment under article 318 of the
Turkish Penal Code for participation in a
demonstration in support of imprisoned
conscientious objector Enver Aydemir on 6
January 2010.
* In January 2011, the prosecution charged Halil
Savda, director Mehmet Atak, writer Fatih Tezcan,
Enver Aydemir's father, Ahmet Aydemir, and Enver
Aydemir's lawyer Davut Erkan under article 318
for a statement they released during the trial
of Enver Aydemir in January 2010.
These few examples are only the tip of the
iceberg of the persecution of antimilitarists in
Turkey. They show to what length the state has
to go to maintain the nationalist, militarist,
and masculinist project of the Turkish nation.
“Every Turk is born a soldier” is an important
slogan in this project, but a slogan which is
increasingly being rejected by Turkish people.
Pinar Selek's crime was (and is) to be part of
the groups and movements rejecting Turkish
militarism, and even more so to do so from a
feminist perspective, and to challenge not only
militarism, but also nationalism and patriarchy,
through her academic work, but also through her
activism.
War Resisters' International demands:
* an immediate end to the persecution of Pinar
Selek. We express our hope that the Istanbul
court will again acquit Pinar Selek – for the
third time – on 9 February 2011, and we hope
that this will be the end of her persecution. We
also hope that she will receive compensation not
only for her 2 ½ years of false imprisonment,
and for being tortured, but also for a
fabricated trial lasting 12 years, which is a
violation of Article 6 of the European
Convention on Human Rights.
* an immediate end to the persecution of
antimilitarists in Turkey, and the abolishing of
article 318 of the Turkish Penal Code –
alienating the people from military service –
which potentially criminalises any criticism of
the Turkish military and of militarism in
general.
--
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