Fri Mar 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

Stop persecutions to Hakan Gülseven! Against Erdoğan’s State of Emergency!

The AKP Government has turned the failed military coup attempt on 15th June into an advantage to broaden the scope of its oppression on opposition. The government’s recent attacks targeting the Kurdish Movement and left wing groups as well as prominent public figures of the opposition which have nothing to do with the coup attempt, clearly demonstrate its real purpose to reduce the entire opposition to silence.

RED Movement Statement.

 

The oppression on the workers, students, intellectuals and other opposition groups ever intensifying since the defeat of Gezi Uprising* is now getting even stronger as the government is exploiting the failed coup as an opportunity. Availing itself of the exceptional power bestowed by the state of emergency, the government has recently shut down tens of TV stations, newspapers and websites all of which belongs to left wing and Kurdish opposition movements as well as intensifying the attacks on the working class movements. More than 10 thousand teachers were dismissed for being members of Eğitim-Sen, the only left wing teachers’ union. Many workers’ groups and organizations going on strike are currently being threatened by the police with State-of-emergency regulations. Many intellectuals and journalist have been arrested and more are on the way to jail. More than 1000 academics who earlier had signed a petition against the fight between the government forces and Kurdish rebels, also known as “the Academics for Peace”, are now being arrested.

Turkey has ceased to be a democratic country in the simplest terms. The regime is currently evolving into a kind of Islamist-fascist dictatorship under which President Erdoğan would fortify his personal position in power against domestic and foreign opponents as well as instigating nationalist and Islamist hysteria in order to solidify his civil mass base. The distinction between the state and the government is disappearing as the military and police forces are becoming simply the militia of the government (also combined withthe civil forces of the party standing by).

RED Movement, a sympathizing section of IWL-FI, is also becoming the target of these attacks and oppression as it confronts the government’s policies, standing up for revolutionary values and advocating united action of workers against the bosses’ reactionary and chauvinist attacks. Hakan Gülseven, a journalist and RED’s prominent public figure, is currently under attack by government forces under the accusation that he has links and collaborates with the left wing hacker group, RedHack. He is charged with terror crime. Apart from Gülseven, many left wing figures have also been charged with collaborating with RedHack. Hakan Gülseven is also an executive-committee-member of United June Movement which is a united struggle organization based on the values of Gezi Uprising, which is why, among other reasons, he was chosen as a target.

Gülseven is a revolutionary militant who has always stood and foughtside by side with workers and the toiling masses. His life speaks for itself. We, as RED Movement, declare that we stand by him against these attacks. To that end, our demands are as follows:

  • The current state of emergency and all its practices must immediately be halted.
  • Those who are responsible for slanders, conspiracies and wrongdoings against the workers, students and intellectuals, notably Hakan Gülseven, must be brought to account.
  • All barriers to the freedom of thought and expression and the right of organization must be removed.
  • Stop persecution to Hakan Gülseven!
  • Long live international solidarity!
  • Long live the International Unity of Workers and their organization of struggle, IWL-FI!

***

Notes:

*Gezi Upraise – protests that gave origin to the revolutionary process in Turkey, when 50 ecologists gathered at the Gezi Park, in Istambul, to protest against the conversion of the park into a Mall. The protest was hardly repressed by the armed forces, generating solidarity along the country, and turning into a massive movement for social demands and against the government.

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