The crime she is being charged with is based on one sentence she used, “Songs don’t hurt anybody.” This phrase, songs not hurting anybody, is considered a terrorist propaganda in Turkey these days.
It was only few days ago when the bass guitarist İbrahim Gökçek lost his life after 324 days on hunger strike. He was the third from the same music group who died after a protest hunger strike.
Turkish regime would not allow the group to perform, sing their folk songs anywhere, not even operate a music cultural center. The group members, to prevent their being seen as the victims of police harassment and to show Turkish system as legitimately charging the musicians, were accused of being a terrorist. This charge was arranged by the government so that the musicians could get the longest prison terms than being charged by other crimes. Every time an event is organized be it music learning, film screening or other performances, the Turkish police would raid the cultural center and destroy the entire musical instruments, building and the furniture.
When İbrahim died last week, the police attacked the funeral and the people who wanted to pay their last respects to a well-known bass guitarist from a folk music progressive group. The musicians’ father was among those who were beaten and detained after a tear gas and flash-bang grenade attack to the religious center by the cops. The religious center where the funeral arrangements were performed is a cemevi, used by the Alevi sects who don’t use mosques for these services and are the targets of the Sunni Muslims, the sect of the Turkish government.
The funeral was taken to his home town for burial two days ago, however, the Nazi Grey Wolves organization blocked the hearse’s passage and attacked the family members bringing the body to the cemetery. The local head of the Nazi street thugs of the Grey Wolves, organized by the infamous mafia organization the MHP, the junior partner of the ruling AKP government, vowed to exhume the body and burn it after the family left.
The entire progressive, left, independent organizations, musicians and associations expressed their disappointment with the Turkish government’s needless pursuing of a musical group and not preventing the hunger strike deaths just because the musicians were opposing the government’s extreme attacks on the people of Turkey and expressed their feelings of freedom and solidarity with the downtrodden.
Judge Ayşe Sarısu Pehlivan, in the Izmir District Circuit of Courts too expressed her sadness after the death of the musician Gökçek with a post on social media. This too was intolerable to the Turkish regime.
Immediately the High Commission of Judges and Prosecutors started an investigation against Pehlivan with the charge, you guessed it, “doing propaganda for terrorism.”
The crime she is being charged with is based on one sentence she used, “Songs don’t hurt anybody.” This phrase, songs not hurting anybody, is considered a terrorist propaganda in Turkey these days.
The progressive justices, on the other hand showed their support for the accused judge. A large number of judicial organizations stood behind her, finding the trumped-up charge to be preposterous.
The association Justices for Democracy issued a statement saying instead of harassing Judge Pehlivan, the security forces should be after the thugs and hate groups that attacked the funeral of İbrahim Gökçek.
The Contemporary Attorneys group of the İzmir Bar Association announced they stood with judge Pehlivan who, “Stood as a beacon of light and a truly independent judge in the middle of the darkness surrounding the judiciary and who shared her understanding of justice and conscience with her post and who was being threatened and targeted for silencing.”
The Contemporary Jurists Association demanded the investigation against the judge Pehlivan to be pulled back immediately and declared they felt honored to be on the same side with the accused judge.
Sendika.org news (M.B.)