As an international observer for the Bar Human Rights Committee, barrister Melanie Gingell travelled to Istanbul to witness the latest hearing in the ongoing case against 46 lawyers, most of them Kurdish, who were arrested as part of the KCK investigations that have seen over 8000 people arrested on terror charges.
Yesterday, the Istanbul court decided that 9 lawyers, among them CHD President Selcuk Kozagacli and Chair of Istanbul Branch Taylan Tanay should be taken to prison.
They were initially arrested last week in police raids targeting the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C). You can read our statement on these arrests, as well as a press release below by the Progressive Lawyers Association (CHD).
The lawyers giving a final speech to the crowd before being taken into prison
PRESS RELEASE OF PROGRESSIVE LAWYERS ASSOCIATION (ÇHD)
Arrest warrants were issued on January, 18 2013 against 16 lawyers on the claimed suspicion of them being members of an illegal organization and despite the lack of a suspicion that they would escape.
Today we are expecting that our colleagues who have been under police custody for the last 3 days be brought to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Under Turkish law and according to the Legal Practitioners Act and the Criminal Procedure Act;
Our colleagues had to be directly brought to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Court House to give their defense statements without being taken under police custody.
