July 29, 2006

The president of Eğitim Sen, the union of education laborers, Alaatin Dinçer, as well as the president of KESK, the confederation of Public Workers’ Union, İ. Hakkı Tombul has been charged for ‘violating the demonstration laws’ for the Great Education Meeting and March held last November to demand “increase in the budget for education and demand better conditions for education laborers.” Other activists and unionists have also been charged of the same ‘crime’ where the prosecutor is claiming that the defendants led and organized the action. The court date has been set for November 8th, 2006.

Last year, in November the education laborers had started to convene in the nation’s capital, Ankara, from every region in the country with the demand to increase the education budget, quality education, and better conditions and rights for teachers and education workers. The action was named, “The Great Education Meeting and March.”

However, the police force was deployed to stop the march at all cost. The police barricaded the entrance to the capital’s entry roads and points and stopped all busses and coaches entering the city to search and prevent any teacher from coming into the city. The police and state terror greeted those teachers that attempted to exercise their constitutional right to demonstrate. The Turkish state brought tanks, poisonous and tear gas bombs, army units and attacked brutally. Tens of teachers attacked and beaten by the cops were wounded or injured.

Hearing the brutal attack by the cops against their comrades at the outskirts of Ankara on the roads, the teachers who were already in Ankara, had joined forces with KESK, the Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions and other unions and had tried to get the teachers being prevented from entering the city to pass the police barricades. However, this time the Turkish police attacked them inside Ankara as well. Many education workers as well as other public workers and supporters were badly beaten by the cops and many were wounded.

The teachers prevailed however, and resisted bravely against this brutal attack by the Turkish police. The teachers who were not being allowed to enter the city refused to return back and spent the night on the freeways leading into the city. Some tried other roads, other ways, to enter the city join their comrades demonstrating for education. In the face of police brutality and the Turkish state’s prevention tactics many teachers were still able to get through and join the marchers at downtown Ankara for the Great Education Meeting and March. The rally had ended with the closing speech of Alaatin Dinçer, the president of the Education Workers’ Union who is now being charged.

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