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İzmir Bar Association Executive Committee has released a written statement about the detention of 13 academics and civil society representatives.
CLICK - Operation Against Civil Society and Academics
In an operation launched earlier today, the following people have been detained: Prof. Dr. Betül Tanbay from the Department of Mathematics at Boğaziçi University and an Academic for Peace signatory to the declaration "We will not be a party to this crime"; Prof. Dr. Turgut Tarhanlı, Dean of the Faculty of Law of İstanbul Bilgi University; Anadolu Kültür Executive Board Deputy Chair Yiğit Ekmekçi; executive board member Ali Hakan Altınay; General Coordinator of Anadolu Kültür Asena Günal; its former director general and Co-Director of Truth Justice Memory Center Meltem Aslan; Bora Sarı from Anadolu Kültür; Ayşegül Güzel, Filiz Telek, Yiğit Aksakoğlu, Yusuf Cıvır, Hande Özhabeş and producer Çiğdem Mater.
"They do not have slightest engagement with violence"
In its statement, the İzmir Bar Association has stated,
"The press note issued in relation to this incident claimed that the detained academics and intellectuals 'organised meetings to deepen and disseminate the Gezi Park protests, conducted works on civil disobedience and nonviolent action, tried to create a new media and were engaged in relations with Europe' and explained that an operation was conducted against them for these reasons.
"We would like to note in respect to these detentions that depriving a citizen of his freedom even for a single minute is one of the gravest human rights violations. Law is not a method of making up a reason to use provisions of written law against individuals. Although the word law makes people laugh in recent days, it is a concept developed to ensure justice.
"Taking away the academics and intellectuals, who have not even had a slightest engagement with violence and crime throughout their lives, from their warm homes, from their families in the morning twilight, intervening in the course of their lives, can by no means be normalised nor accepted.
"No plausible legal reason could justify issuance of arrest warrants against 20 individuals on such grounds as establishing a media organisation five years after the Gezi Incidents, engaging in contact with Europe and supporting non-violent action. Practices as such, have no place in any contemporary democracy that has been predicated on human rights.
"Detention in morning hours is a method of criminalization"
"Detention of individuals –who would consent to give statements if had been summoned – at 06:00 in the morning through raids into their households, refers to their criminalisation in the eyes of the public, as well as a method picked to punish them.
"As İzmir Bar Association we call the authorities to duty in order to ensure recognition of rights and freedoms of our citizens at the highest level provided for by national and international laws." (HK/SD)
