Charged with membership of an ‘unknown organisation’

Two separate investigations have seemingly been launched into membership of and making propaganda for a terrorist organisation against sociologist Veli Saçılık, who is keeping up his resistance in Yüksel Street. With the investigation documents silent as to which organisation Saçılık is a member of, a great many Twitter posts are cited as evidence, ranging from the comment ‘You will be beaten’ beneath a photograph of Israeli soldiers to the famous photograph of Gezi and from the photograph of his mother being dragged along the ground by the police to the photograph his daughter had taken with protesters in Yüksel Street. Included among the posts for which he stands charged is Saçılık’s poster for the lessons he was to give at the Solidarity Academy on the books that Karl Marx wrote about France.

Çorum Republic Chief Prosecution has ruled itself to lack jurisdiction over the investigation started into Saçılık and has sent the file to Ankara Chief Prosecution. It was stated in the ruling that, however much Saçılık’s civil registry entry was in Çorum, the social media posts over which the charges had been raised were made in Ankara, where he lived. Even though ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ was entered in the ‘offence charged with’ section of the non-jurisdiction ruling, the name of the organisation was not specified.

In the file sent to Ankara annexed to the non-jurisdiction ruling are a great many of Saçılık’s Twitter posts deemed by the police to constitute elements of crime. Saçılık’s photograph of children holding the Palestinian flag and making the victory sign as Israeli soldiers enter a Palestinian-owned house is included among this evidence. The photograph that has become a symbol of the Gezi protests showing five elderly men taking shelter behind a wall with their masks has also been placed in the file as another piece of evidence of ‘membership of a terrorist organisation.’ Also included among the evidence is Saçılık’s post of a photograph of his mother being dragged along the ground by the police during the resistance, Saçılık’s reaction of ‘Applauders of massacre’ to the headline ‘You reap what you sow’ run by Akit and Güneş newspapers with reference to the explosion in the UK and the post of a photograph from Yüksel Street in which his eight-year-old daughter is also present. A poster with the caption ‘French Trio’ for lessons that sociologist Saçılık was to give at the Solidarity Academy in Ankara on Karl Marx’s books Class Struggles in France, 18th Brumaire of Louise Bonaparte and The Civil War in France has also been cited among the evidence. Charges have even been made over the Scope broadcast made during a visit by CHP MP Eren Erdem to Yüksel Street.

Arrested eighteen times

Veli Saçılık, who had his arm torn off in an operation conducted at Burdur Prison, passed the exams he entered and became a civil servant following his acquittal in a trial in which he was charged with selling newspapers and distributing flyers relating to 8 March Women’s Day. Saçılık, who was employed as a sociologist at the Ministry of Family and Social Policies was expelled from public service under a decree with the force of law issued on 22 November. Saçılık began to protest in Yüksel Street from 24 November along with educationalists Nuriye Gülmen and Selim Özakça, who, like him, had been dismissed under decrees with the force of law. Saçılık, who has undergone countless arrests and beatings, has also been arrested eighteen times during the protests. Saçılık was singled out as a target through posts about him made on Twitter on certain accounts including one of a Turkish Radio and Television Corporation reporter under the heading ‘Veli Saçılık’s terrorist past’ about his being arrested in his youth. It is noticeable that the investigations started following these posts.