Returnees knowing they will be jailed (Part 1&2&3)

You know there is a plot against you.

You know you are right.

You are a patriot, yet stand accused of treason.

You stand up for democracy, human rights and peace.

You strive to carry out the educational, teaching or journalistic duties that fall to you inspired by your belief in democracy, human rights and peace.

You are on the side of peace, but stand accused of supporting a terrorist organisation!

You are abroad.

There is an arrest warrant for you!

If you return, you expect to suffer injustice and imprisonment for no just reason.

And you come.

To go to jail!

WHY?

***

Why and under what conditions would a person return to their country where they expect to endure unwarranted, unlawful and unjust imprisonment of unknown duration despite their innocence?

Discussion of this question is beyond the limits of a newspaper column.

Whole volumes of books could be written about it.

Let me just restrict myself to certain concrete and objective pieces of information today.

***

Report 1

In the Sledgehammer Trial, returnees not spared sentence, either.

Numbering among the accused to be sentenced were Brigadier General Hakan Akkoç, who returned to Turkey from his NATO duties and handed himself in, and Vice Admiral Ahmet Sinan Ertuğrul, who returned from his duties in the Persian Gulf.

Report 2

Captain who was jailed despite returning to the country awarded compensation.

Muğla Serious Crime Court No 2, in the claim for compensation brought by Naval Staff Captain Derya Ün for having suffered unjust imprisonment in the Sledgehammer Trial, found the administration to be at “grave fault”. The court, finding the remanding of Ün’s despite his having come from abroad to make statement to be in breach of the law, ordered the administration to pay 994,000 lira in compensation, 850,000 in non-material damages and 144,000 in material damages.

Report 3

Assistant Professor Dr. Meral Camcı, one of the signatories of the declaration, detained on her return to Turkey.

She set out her reasons for returning as follows:

“I am making this statement based on the value I attach to our unity and solidarity and on the moral strength this endows me with. My return is undoubtedly a heartfelt and conscious decision. As far as I am concerned, it is an absolutely essential decision. As essential as the signature I added and the press statement I read. It is as unambiguous as my belief in a democratic country without ifs or buts in which peaceful cohabitation in a spirit of equality, difference and togetherness is possible. I see the fight for peace as being a process. The current moment is but one of its moments. It has a past and will continue.

Above all else I have not abandoned hope over this country. We called for peace and we will stand by our pronouncements. We will expose the ongoing violations of rights at universities – we said we would transform the universities as well as this country. I owe a duty to this country’s youth and its children and the students I was dragged away from by force. If they decree this to be the just return for the peace of mind and honour that comes with being right, so be it. We will conduct our defence from the inside, too, in sincerity and with our heads held high and will continue our push in the direction of a solution.

The weight on our hearts is shared, friends ... as I said in a private letter to one of my friends. It does not matter which side of a wall we are on until our thoughts become free. We will lift those walls and become free. Internally and externally. I must be there just now. You are all certainly familiar with Socrates’ Defence. He says, “Exile is the harshest punishment that can be given to a person” and I cannot live a life that I have not chosen of my free will. I will stand by my pronouncements in support of peace and will continue the struggle. This for me has been the only way to be human, to remain human since last June until now. And also to continue with academic work, research and output.

Report 4

Cumhuriyet newspaper’s Executive Board Chair Akın Atalay, who was abroad at the time its columnists and managers were remanded in custody, returned on 11 November and was jailed.

Akın Atalay explained his reasons for returning home as follows:

“I want you to know that I did not engage in this return as an act of ‘heroism’, and that I tried to take the most correct decision for the common good in an overall calm manner and in line with the dictates of reason and logic rather than emotion.

The basic factors behind my decision to return were:

- Not to cause our paper to bow its head in shame,

- Not to sully the good name of a paper like Cumhuriyet having a solid past, an honourable posture and a deserved esteem through negative slurs such as ‘fugitive’, ‘escapee’ and ‘criminal’ being cast against its vice chair and Executive Board Chair,

- To demonstrate through my actions my hope and trust in people who are waging an unwavering struggle for Turkey to become a democratic and secular republic and a welfare state rooted in human rights, and in my country’s bright future, and

- To circumvent the resort to a pretext along the lines of, “Look, if they are released they could flee as well just like some of them have done’ that would work to the disadvantage of our nine colleagues who have been remanded on flight risk grounds.”

***

Let this suffice as far as objective information and documentation goes.

To examine why people return to their countries to go to jail calls for a great effort that will encroach on the fields of psychology, social psychology, sociology, morality, law and politics.

I will try to do the best I can!

 

Part 2&3

 

There is no one simple answer to the question of why some people against whom arrest or remand orders are issued while they are abroad return to go to jail.
Or why some people who know they are going to be imprisoned do not go abroad and flee when they have the opportunity to do so, and wait like lambs for the slaughter.
***
I must immediately point out that the purpose of this article is not to participate in or oppose the sickening “Traitor” campaigns waged by the pro-government media. The purpose of this article is not to vilify or vindicate in political and legal terms those who return from abroad to go to jail, but simply to chronicle the days we are living through and to examine events from a sociological and psychological point of view.
***
I mentioned four items of news above concerning people who have returned from abroad to go to jail.
The first two of these reports were about officers who arrived to go to jail in the “First Silivri Tragedy” period.
The last two presented the facts as recounted first hand by civilians who returned home to go to jail in the “Second Silivri Tragedy” period.
At first sight, one gets the impression that there is a “soldier-civilian” difference between those involved in the First and Second Silivri Tragedies, or even a difference in political and ideological stance, but this is a misleading impression.
On delving a little deeper, you will see that what happened in both Silivri Tragedies, even if those involved, the stances and ideologies were different, came about for the same reasons.
***
The reasons for those who come to face jail are many, far beyond the scope of an article. So, I will set about addressing the most important of these:
The first reason for those who arrive to go to jail would appear to be their profound belief in their innocence and that they have not engaged in any act or discourse that would warrant their punishment.
They come because they believe themselves to be without guilt even if they are imprisoned!
This belief in their innocence is not restricted to the spheres of morality or conscience.
They think that they have not engaged in any act constituting a crime within the prevailing legal system and under penal law.
I think this point is the most important.
For, they are not placing their trust merely in the morality and consciences of their accusers, but directly in objective rules of law and statutes.
They thus think that they will eventually be acquitted and gain their freedom.
Without doubt this trust, this thought, extends from statutes to the Constitution and the Constitutional Court that oversees the Constitution and from there to the European Convention on Human Rights and its court, the ECHR.
Indeed, the truth and correctness of this reasoning was vindicated before history and the law as far as “those coming to go to jail”  in the “First Silivri Tragedy” period were concerned.
The imprisoned were absolved and those who imprisoned them were charged and imprisoned.
The officers who returned home to go to jail in the “First Silivri Tragedy” spoke in very plain and lucid terms of their innocence.
We see the same pronouncements in the “Second Silivri Tragedy”.
For example, Meral Camcı, who returned to her country to go to jail, expressed her belief and thoughts as to her innocence as follows:
“If they decree this to be the just return for the peace of mind and honour that comes with being right, so be it. We will conduct our defence from the inside, too, in sincerity and with our heads held high and will continue our push in the direction of a solution.”
For example, Akın Atalay, who similarly returned to Turkey and went to jail, stressed his innocence in the following terms in his letter quoted in full at my Up To Date column at kongar.org.:
“A member of the judiciary who himself is charged with FETÖ/PDY organisation membership is attempting to accuse people and entities whose lives have been spent fighting this organisation and whose past attainments bear witness to this fight with aiding this very organisation. Who are you going to persuade with such nonsense?”
***
Let me point out straight away that not all of those who believe in their innocence return to the country and go to prison.
As I have tried to explain above, this is just one of the reasons why they return to face imprisonment.
Humans are very complex, multifaceted and, on top of that, variable creatures.
Investigating and accounting for their attitudes and behaviour is no easy matter.
It is certainly a far from easy matter to work out how they will behave at times of crisis and under pressure.
But let God oblige nobody to have to do jail time to prove their innocence!
***
The second reason for those who return to go to jail would appear to be respect for what they have said and done, their beliefs, professions, identities and personalities, in short, for themselves.
They believe that the actions and discourses they have engaged in up until that time to have been conduct that was called for by their professions, morality and beliefs.
They feel the need to account to everybody for the morality, beliefs, attitudes and behaviour they have displayed, and to explain and defend in the face of history, society and the law who they are and why they said and did these things.
In the case of the soldiers who came home and went to jail, this ‘sense of defending their personality and duty-related morality’ was very stark.
They expressly stated that they had arrived and gone to prison out of a sense of duty.
There were even those among them who described doing jail time as a “citizenship duty”.
Meral Camcı, who chose not to flee and remain in exile, described the same feeling as follows:
“... I cannot live a life that I have not chosen of my free will. I will stand by my pronouncements in support of peace and will continue the struggle. This for me has been the only way to be human, to remain human since last June until now. And also to continue with academic work, research and output.”
Akın Atalay made the following reference to the beliefs that shape his personality in his letter in which he set out his reasons for returning:
“To show through my actions my hope and belief in people who are unyieldingly fighting for Turkey to be a democratic, secular republic and a welfare, law-based state where the rule of law prevails, and in my country’s bright future.”
***
Woe betide that set-up that makes the defence of independent personality, professional morality, democracy, peace and freedom into a sacrifice for which there is a price to be paid!