Enis Berberoğlu: Unlawful detention will end

İklim Öngel
 
 
Members of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission Prison Sub-Commission, CHP Deputy General Chair Veli Ağbaba, CHP Istanbul MP Gamze İlgezdi, AKP Istanbul MPs Fatma Benli and Mehmet Metiner and HDP Diyarbakır MP Sibel Yiğitalp, visited detained MP Berberoğlu in his cell in Maltepe Prison. The MPs who took part in the visit imparted information about Berberoğlu’s prison conditions and cell. Berberoğlu apparently replied to his MP colleagues’ question as to when detention will end by saying he believed this unjust and unlawful detention would end by 1 December at the latest.
 
From what has been gleaned, Berberoğlu is being held on his own in a six-person room. On the right-hand side at the entrance to Berberoğlu’s cell there is a bedroom and one more empty room. In the daily living area used as a common space, on the other hand, there is a 37"-screen television and a small plastic table covered in books, two plastic chairs, a large bucket, a laundry basin, a fridge and a small water bottle. There is a small samovar in the room’s kitchen section.
 
The walls of Berberoğlu’s cell are covered with pages from newspapers.
 
15 July poster
 
There is also a poster containing the photographs of the 15 July fallen on the wall. With the AKP’s Metiner expressing astonishment at this poster, Berberoğlu apparently said, “Everyone who struggles and gives up their lives for democracy is sacred to me. Be they civilian, or be they soldiers or police officers, everyone who came out into the open for democracy is a martyr and is patriotic. It is not important who came outdoors that day, be they AKP or CHP supporters. Everyone who came out onto the street was fighting against the coup.”
 
On the wall where the table and television are situated, there are photographs of Berberoğlu’s daughter Dilara and wife Oya Berberoğlu and a small wooden model ship. Hanging on the same wall are the front pages of the 10 July 2017 Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet and Sözcü newspapers devoted to the Maltepe Rally.