GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

and still there are 142 journalists in prison. The press cards of 2,000 journalists

have been cancelled. At least 3,000 journalists were made unemployed.

Moreover, the President of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, Şebnem

Korur Fincanci, and former President of the TTB’s central Committee,

Professor Dr Gencay Gürsoy, were both sentenced to two years’ imprisonment

for signing a statement saying: “We won’t be a part of the war crime”. 1,200

academics also faced the same sentence, because of signing the statement.

This means if you, “We won’t be part of the war crime” it is forbidden. In Turkey

in the Erdoğan regime if you are against the war, this is criminal, this is

forbidden.

The current politics of Turkey has become such a tragi-comic situation that, for

example, business person and peace activist, Osman Kavala, has been

imprisoned for 15 months and the accusation against him is still unknown.

Notwithstanding, according to Article 299, if you criticise Erdoğan, it has

become an action of insulting the President of the Republic. It basically means

you will be jailed. Even making peaceful demonstrations and protest marches

are forbidden. One of the most typical examples of this is the “Saturday

Mothers”, who made peaceful demonstration for 700 weeks, but now find their

demonstrations are prohibited. One of the HDP’s MPs, Leyla Güven, was arrested on 31 st January 2018 because she criticised the Turkish invasion of Afrin in northern Syria. On 8 th November 2018 she went on hunger strike

demanding the lifting of the inhumane condition of solitary confinement

imposed on the Kurdish leader, Mr Ocalan. After Leyla Güven started the

hunger strike, almost 7,000 political prisoners and worldwide people joined the

protest by going on hunger strike too. Leyla Güven and many people on

hunger strike are now in a critical state of health. Until today seven prisoners

and one Kurdish activist lost their lives because of protesting isolation against

Mr Ocalan. The mothers of prisoners are daily being attacked and beaten by

security forces as they wanted to make press releases regarding their children

who are continuing hunger strikes.

To conclude, legal and democratic accomplishments gained throughout the

history of humanity have been subject to huge erosion in Turkey. Legislation,

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