Before a judge for protesting child marriage (24.03.2018)

Hilal Köse

The trial in which twenty-two people including expellee from Sinop University, Assistant Professor Dr. İrfan Mukul, protested against Nurettin Yıldız and his claim that a six-year-old girl could marry has been adjourned until April. The protest which saw the participation of Education and Science Workers' Union teachers, Confederation of Public Employees' Trade Unions members and dozens of Sinop residents was staged on 12 May 2016. People who were arrested were held in custody for a day.

Mukul, submitting his defence at the sixteenth session at Sinop Penal Court of First Instance No 1, stated that freedom of expression was a human right and pursuant to Article 34 of the Constitution everyone had the right to stage meetings and protests without obtaining permission. Mukul, asking in which legal text it was deemed to be a crime to join a protest march against Nurettin Yıldız, noted that he had been arrested in connection with the protest in view of his students at a graduation meal. Mukul gave the following description of what happened to him after he protested against Yıldız: “First my commission memberships at the faculty where I worked were ended under Decree with the Force of Law number 667. Two separate investigations were launched by university management. I was cleared in these investigations. Then an investigation was reopened. I was asked in the investigation why I had joined the Nurettin Yıldız protest. I was expelled under Decree with the Force of Law number 695 before the investigation had concluded. Prior to my expulsion from the university, I was unable to attend a congress held at Germany’s Humbolt University due to the university not providing funding. On the other hand, while on the way to attend an international congress being held in Cyprus, my passport was seized at Ankara Esenboğa Airport. I was suspended on 24 December. It was the time of the final examinations at university. I was teaching twelve separate courses. There was uproar in the Faculty of Education over my inability to hold my exams. Students were in outrage about this. All of this happened to me because I attended the Nurettin Yıldız protest. Can a faculty member undergo these things in a democratic country? I ask the court bench. I was shortly to become an associate professor and would have become a professor in five years. Who will pay the price for what I have suffered following comments that echoed those of the President and Council of State Presiding Judge, or who will say ‘Sorry’ to me?”

‘6 yaşında çocukla evlenilebilir' sözlerini protesto ettiği için yargıç karşısına çıktı