08.07.2015

Weekly Report, 29 June – 5 July 2015

Kobane Massacre

*It has been confirmed that the IS militants responsible for the Kobanê massacre entered the city from Turkey. A member of IS, captured alive admitted that an attacking column and armoured division had entered Kobanê via Turkey. An identification document from the Disasters and Emergencies Ministry was also recovered showing that an IS member had lodged at Akçakale.

*The YPG’s (Union for the Protection of the People) Kobanê Command confirmed that 233 civilians and 23 combatants had been killed in the Kobanê massacre and that 37 lives had been lost in the clear-up operation. With the exception of 7 persons who fled to Turkey the YPG Command announced that all IS elements had been killed. It went on to declare that revenge would be taken for all martyrs and that the price to be exacted in response to the massacre would be very high.

*Despite provocation from the police and nationalists, the final journey to his resting place of MLSPB-Revolutionary Wing’s combatant Alper Çakas was lined with hundreds of mourners. His comrades took the oath of revolution at his graveside.

Women’s/LGBTI Diary

*The Mayorship of Istanbul has defended the police attacks on Istanbul’s Pride March. The Mayorship considered the attack to be in line with ‘commensurate force’ and claimed that the march was open to provocation.

*In the month of June men killed 21 women, raped 9 women and children and caused injury to 25 women. Twelve per cent of women who were seriously injured after being attacked with a lethal weapon had been asking for a divorce or separation.

*The Group for the Immediate Prevention of Murders of Women met in Kadıköy to protest male violence. They declared that the murders were not the result of momentary insanity but the result of systematic violence and that the longer a blind eye was turned to this fact the braver these killers would become.

*The murders of two women in Kayseri that remained unsolved for 17 and 10 years respectively have now been solved. The perpetrator in both cases was determined to have been the husband of each.

Torture of Kurdish people continues

*The four young people taken into custody by soldiers following their armed attack on the people of Roboski village have now been released by the local prosecutor. One of the youths, S.E. declared that soldiers had tortured all four young people.

*The terror of arrests and detentions going on in Kurdistan continues with no signs of abating. Yesterday 19 people were taken into custody in raids on homes in Amed, Mêrdin, Elih and Ankara. In the raid in Nisbîn special forces teams beat citizens in their homes and took them into custody.

*As a result of the criminal charges brought in the wake of the actions in Van and Kobanê 52 people have each been recommended 297 year prison sentences despite there being no legal foundation for the charges.

Workers’ Diary

*The Government have vindicated themselves over the Soma mining disaster, there is no fault and no compensation. Manisa Chairman of the Bar Ali Arslan announced that a case for a compensation claim would be opened in response to this decision within the requisite 60 days against the ministries and the General Directorate for Turkish Coal.

*Police entered a factory in Gebze on the 5^th of July, taking 15 people into custody after workers stopped production at the Arçelik LG plant over their demand for an increase in wages.

*Fifteen agricultural workers lost their lives after the vehicle carrying them was in a road traffic accident in Manisa.

Turkish diary

*It’s exactly 22 years since the Sivas massacre. On the 2^nd of July thousands of citizens gathered outside the Madımak Hotel to remember the murder of 33 intellectuals and two hotel workers who lost their lives in the fire.

*The Chinese administration in Peking has entered the fray following the targeting by Turkish nationalists of ‘Chinese targets’ in Turkey in the wake of the oppression of the Uygurs in China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has warned Turkish citizens to be careful in their protests on the matter.

*Women marched in Taksim to protest against the readying of the AKP government for war, both home and abroad. They chanted, ‘We voted for Peace, No! to the government of war’. The women called for all women to ‘demand peace’ and they also protested the inflammatory language being employed by the media.

The Saturday People hold their 536^th gathering

*In their 536^th gathering in Galatasaray the Saturday Mothers/People called for resolution in the case of Ibrahim and Edip Çelik who went missing in 1994. They called for an end to 21 years of injustice.

*In a press statement the Istanbul Branch of the Human Rights Association’s Commission Against Disappearances in Custody described the events leading up to the disappearance of father and son, Ibrahim and Edip Çelik, ‘On the night of the 10^th of July 1994 four masked gunmen knocked on the door of the Çelik family home. When father and son failed to return home the Gendarmerie and local police station were informed and a criminal complaints were lodged against T.R., A.Ö, R.G. and Ç.D. Enquiries turned up no results and nothing was heard of the two again.

Prison Diary

*A sentence of nine months in prison has been given out to two political prisoners in Osmanlı Prison for causing damage to state property when a torn warrant document was discovered in their bedding.