A total of 108 personalities from politics, civil society and the Kurdish freedom movement are accused in the Kobanê trial in connection with the HDP's call for solidarity with Kobanê as it was under siege by ISIS in 2014.
The seventh round of hearings in the "Kobanê trial" began in Ankara on Monday. The first session opened with another scandal. After the presiding judge had already been removed from the trial without formal justification by decision of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), another member of the court has now been recalled.
Speaking after the hearing, lawyer Cihan Aydın said, “It is no longer possible for us to continue with this hearing. The court delegation seems to have made their decision already. We will not be a party to this crime. We are faced with a delegation that does not respect the ECtHR ruling and does not cooperate with the defense. We will not attend the hearings unless a fair trial is ensured. Only then are we and our clients ready to be present in the courtroom.”
The lawyer remarked that they would make a defense once conditions for a fair trial are made available, adding, “Our clients were not given time to view the documents of thousands of pages. We will not be a party to this. We are ready to settle accounts once appropriate conditions are granted. We do not want to be present in the courtroom where the law is trampled upon. We will not be attending the hearings scheduled for two weeks.”
Background
A total of 108 personalities from politics, civil society and the Kurdish freedom movement are accused in the Kobanê trial. They face severe prison sentences on the basis of trumped-up charges, in dozens of cases, aggravated life sentences and thus imprisonment until death. The 3,530-page indictment relates to events that occurred in October 2014 around the Kurdish town of Kobanê in northern Syria. In a Twitter post, which the ECtHR considers political speech, the HDP called for solidarity with Kobanê, which was under siege by ISIS, and protests against the Turkish government for not ending its support for ISIS. During these protests, violent clashes broke out between the demonstrators, the police, the military and organizations close to ISIS, resulting in 43 deaths, according to the HDP. The public prosecutor's office speaks of 37 deaths. These deaths, most of which were HDP members, are blamed in the Kobanê trial on the executive committee at the time and the party as a whole.
