Page 29 - 2020 Yılında Diyarbakır Barosu Başkanı, Yönetim Kurulu ve Baro Üyesi Avukatlara Yönelik Soruşturma ve Kovuşturmalara Dair Rapor

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LAWYERS’ RIGHTS CENTERAWYERS’ RIGHTS CENTER LAWYERS’ RIGHTS CENTERAWYERS’ RIGHTS CENTER
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given a decision to search, arrest and detain them because they had their names, Society Congress, which is a legal organization’ in the same decision, and that
surnames, and phone numbers on an alleged list of the Democratic Society Congress participation in the work of the Democratic Society Congress would not be sufficient
( Demokratik Toplum Kongresi /DTK) . The list alleged to be in the Democratic Society evidence/ justification even for detention
Congress is the list that contains the names and contact information of our colleagues
who work for election and ballot box security during election periods. In addition, 5) Investigations and Prosecutions against the President of
some of our colleagues were accused of being a member of the Mesopotamia the Diyarbakır Bar Association and Members of the Board of
Lawyers Association (Mezopotomya Hukukçular Derneği) , which was closed by a Directors
decree law, an done of our colleagues of being a member of the Rosa Women’s
Association ( Rosa Kadın Derneği) , which operates to prevent violence against a) Criminal Cases Filed against the President of the Bar Association
women. and Board Members for the Period 2016- 2018
4) Investigations and Prosecutions against Our Colleagues Due 1) Two separate criminal cases have been filed against Ahmet Özmen, the
to the Democratic Society Congress President of the Diyarbakır Bar Association who served between 2016- 2018, and
the members of the Board of Directors for Bar Association activities. Statements of
Between 2017- 2020, many of our colleagues were detained for allegedly our Bar Association subject to the case;
participating in some of the activities of the Democratic Society Congress, which has • The article titled12 ‘ April 24/ Great Catastrophe : Sharing the Pain of the
been operating in Diyarbakır since 2007. Criminal cases were filed against at least 12 Armenian People’ dated April 24, 2017.
of our colleagues with the accusation of ‘ members of the organization’ within the
scope of Article 314/ 2 of the Turkish Penal Code due to some of the activities of the • The article titled13 ‘Punishing the Statement of Kurdistan is Shame, It is
Democratic Society Congress. Lawyer Fethi Gümüş, who served as the President of Unacceptable ‘ dated December 18, 2017.
the Bar Association between 1990- 1994, was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months • The report titled14 ‘The incident as a Result of an Armed Unmanned Aerial
in prison, Lawyer Mehmet Emin Aktar10 , who served as the President of the Bar Vehicle Intervention in Hakkari Province Oğul (Tale) Village Kanireş’ dated 14
Association between 2008- 2012, and a colleague (1) of our Bar Association were September 2017.
also sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in prison. Regarding these allegations, upon the request of the Diyarbakır Chief Public
According to the findings of our center, a verdict of acquittal has been made against Prosecutor’s Office, the members of the Board of Directors of the Diyarbakır Bar
five (5) colleagues of the same accusation, criminal cases against at least four (4) of Association ‘ Inciting The People To Hatred And Hostility, Denigrating The Grand
our colleagues are stil pending. National Assembly Of Turkey And The Turkish Nation’ and similar crimes, it was
The activities carried out by the Democratic Society Congress in various fields in the decided by the Ministry of Justice to ‘permit investigation’ and the lawsuit was filed.
solution process and with the participation, knowledge and approval of the state 2 ) About Ahmet Özmen, who was the President of the Bar Association between
bureacucracy stemming from the nature of the solution process were criminalized 2016- 2018, and the members of the Board of Directors ; An investigation was
with the end of the solution process, the investigation and prosecution and finally initiated due to the statement titled ‘We Share the Unrelenting Great Pain of the
punishment of the addressees of the solution process clearly eliminates the ‘prescribed Armenian People’ dated April 24, 2018, with the permission of the Ministry of
by law principle’. The interpretation of the Grand Chamber of the European Court Justice for investigation, the criminal cases have been filed about these crimes;
of Human Rights in the Demirtaş decision11 in terms of the principle of prejudice is ‘Inciting The People To Hatred And Hostility, Denigrating The Grand National
quite striking. The Court; one of the requirements arising from the phrase ‘prescribed Assembly Of Turkey And The Turkish Nation’. The President of the Bar Association
by law’ is predictability. In the Court’s view ; if a norm is not formulated with sufficient Ahmet ÖZMEN, members of the Board of Directors of the Bar Association; Ahmet
precision to allow individuals to regulate their behavior and does not allow individuals DAĞ, Cihan ÜLSEN, İmran GÖKDERE, Mahsum BATI, Muhammed Neşet GİRASUN,
to anticipate at a reasonable level the relevant circumstances and consequences of Nahit EREN, Nuşin UYSAL EKİNCİ, Serhat EREN, Sertaç BULUTTEKİN and Velat ALAN-
their actions- if necessary, with appropriate advice- fort he purposes of paragraph 2 These two criminal cases filed against these lawyers, were later merged and are stil
of Article 10, is not considered a ‘law’ for its purposes. Grand Chamber continues; pending.
Referring to the report of the Venice Commission; ‘It stated that in the application of
Article 314 of the Criminal Code, the domestic courts generally tend to decide on b) Investigations and Criminal Cases against the Current President
the basis of very weak evidence when assessing the membership of individuals to an and Board Members of Bar Association
armed organization (…) 1 - In summary, in the written press statement published on the website of the
The range of actions attributed to the applicant in relation to the serious crimes in Diyarbakır Bar Association on April 24, 2019; ‘ Diyarbakır on once again shares
Article 314 of the Criminal Code is quite extensive within the scope of this article with the public that it was aware of the great disaster experienced by the Armenian
and this, combined with the interpretation of the domestic courts, does not provide People who were living in various parts of Anatolia in 1915, shared their pain and
sufficient safeguards against arbitrary intervention by the domestic courts’. felt this pain in the depths of their heart’.15 Due to this statement, an investigation
The Grand Chamber described the Democratic Society Congress as ‘ Democratic was initiated by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office against the President
of the Diyarbakır Bar Association and Board Members. The investigation prosecutor
sent the investigation file to the Ministry of Justice for permission to investigate

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