Wave of repression hits anarchists in Turkey following May Day demonstrations.
Yesterday night (May 13) Turkish state organized a night raid to various houses and anarchist social centres in a night raid in Istanbul. 60 people were arrested. It is yet uncertain if some of those people are anarchist or just related/friends of some anarchists.
The apparent "reason" shown for the raids are the actions of the insurrectionary/primitivist anarchists' stone throwing on the 1st of May actions. However, the groups that are targeted are not insurrectionary anarchists. One of them is social anarchist/anarcho-communist group called "land and freedom" (toprak ve ozgurluk) the other is Revolutionary Anarchist Activity (Devrimci Anarsist Faaliyet).
Till now nothing has been heard from the imprisoned anarchists. They are not even let to talk with their lawyers. Turkish state recently developed the tactic of mass raids towards every kind of currents in the left. Till now thousands of legal Kurdish Party (BDP) members and hundreds of leftists have been imprisoned for years without even trial and a clear criminal allegation. This is the first massive operation against the anarchists.
Some pictures of the raided anarchist cafe of the RAA:
http://anarsistfaaliyet.org/sokak/devrimci-anarsist-faaliyete-polis-baskini/
Comments
That's awful. How long are
That's awful. How long are they likely to be held?
Holy guacamole, this is
Holy guacamole, this is madness! I once red in a Noam Chomsky something about him acting as an international observer for Turkish activists likely meant the difference between death sentance and life imprisonment. Someone call Chomsky!
do ABC or similar orgs have
do ABC or similar orgs have any sort of presence in the area (or contacts even if they're not on the ground)?
There is hardly anything
There is hardly anything clear about the situation of the anarchists yet. It appears that turkish police -being highly ignorant about anarchism- caught everybody somehow related to active groups in Istanbul. They got anarcho-communists, anarchists w/o labels-community organizers etc together. However, the main "cause" for the arrests were the actions of insurrectionists...
So the real damage was received by the pro-organizational types, some of them being class-struggle anarchists whereas yet there is no news/definite info about any insurrectionists arrested.
Apparently today (after 48 hours of interrogation periods end) they will face the court. I heard that some people (including a woman who was in her 8 month of pregnancy) are released. I will update as soon as I hear more.
I do not have any contact with those people and I am mostly summarizing the stuff from online forums/papers. But still if you have any chance of making this heard widely that may help the arrested people. The people will be tried on "terrorism/illegal organization" and this is serious in Turkey. We will see what happens...
Just to give an example both
Just to give an example both on the tense political situation in turkey and on the reasons why these arrests are not an exceptional case against the anarchists: today 62 more people are arrested alleged to be related to the semi legal front organization of PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party).
These kind of arrests are continuing since AKP have come to government and directed to two main targets: on the left and on the military. Some people think AKP being self confident that it can not be brought down through an election is fearful of a military-left coalition for a coup against itself. In fact the main target of political arrests were initially the secularists. Then the scope widened to every shade of left. What is strange is this is the first time that anarchists have been targeted in such a way in turkish history!
Some updates: 15 out of 60
Some updates:
15 out of 60 people sent to court with the demand of arrest and rest was released
http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos336/ainfos51395.html
(en) An Open Letter From
(en) An Open Letter From Anarchist Prisoners in Turkey to the Public
june 12th: Freedom for the
june 12th: Freedom for the turkish anarchists
Anyone know of anything planned for today?
There's a conference this
There's a conference this week in which the Turkish ambassador will be at and I was thinking about going and asking about this (among other things). Anyone have any updates on the matter?