Questions from Silivri

- Is it normal and reasonable practice for a defendant who stands accused of and is being tried for Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organisation (FETO) membership, with prison terms sought for him of aggravated life once, life once and one running into tens of years, to still continue in his post as Istanbul Republic Prosecutor?

-With the expulsion from the profession of thousands of judges and prosecutors who are on trial charged with organisation membership for whom prison terms of from seven and a half to fifteen years are sought, what is the reason for a prosecutor who is on trial charged with organisation membership and for whom aggravated life and life sentences are sought not even having been suspended for the duration of the investigation and trial? What is the secret behind and reason for this noticeable favouritism and protectiveness?

Cannot even be a candidate

-While, according to the Judges and Prosecutors Law (Article 8), a person into whom an investigation for a crime of this nature has been launched cannot even be a candidate for the post of judge or prosecutor, let along act as a judge or prosecutor, what is the reason for the anomaly and disgrace of continuing to keep this prosecutor in his post?

Deputy Head of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, Mehmet Yılmaz, says, ‘Can you keep a judge who has been arrested on armed terrorist organisation charges in his post? You must remove this person from his post until proven innocent. This is an important step so as not to shake people’s confidence and maintain trust in the judiciary.’ (Special interview on page 17 of Habertürk newspaper, 29 December 2016)

-If the learned deputy head still stands behind these words, how is our prosecutor’s situation to be explained?

Are you not aware that the exercise in black humour of a prosecutor who is on trial charged with FETO membership levelling the accusation against Cumhuriyet newspaper, which for forty years has been providing and addressing the public and raising awareness with information and reports about the way this organisation has set up within and infiltrated state bodies and how they have concealed themselves, that ‘it made FETO’s propaganda’ has turned the judiciary into a laughing stock?

What is the goal and target?

-Is it not very difficult to understand the illegality, invalidity and illogicality of the ability of a prosecutor who is threatened with and risks life imprisonment for the crime of FETO membership to conduct an investigation into others on charges of membership of or aiding FETO or making its propaganda?

-With there being hundreds of prosecutors at the Istanbul Judicial Complex, what backstage legal or political plan lies behind specifically assigning our investigation file to a prosecutor who is going through a very difficult and arduous personal and professional series of events and is virtually in the position of a hostage?

-What is the goal and target of those who fail to intervene – despite being authorised to do so – in the conducting in this unlawful manner of an investigation that has been going on for seven months and is somehow not concluded, and thus indirectly share responsibility for this unlawfulness?

This question is for the Justice Minister, too:

This unlawful situation, which you brushed off months ago by calling it ‘unfortunate,’ has been continuing with the knowledge and approval of Istanbul Chief Republic Prosecution despite all of the applications and complaints that have been made. As far as can be ascertained, the mentality that has infected the judicial institution and its functionaries of relying, not on the law, but on those in power, is conduct that continues to hold sway. Under such circumstances, do you contemplate giving judicial functionaries who await the instruction from you for business and procedures to accord with the law a signal of this nature?

Will you move into action?

In view of freedom of expression and publication, do you plan to move into action to see that ‘justice’ is done and end the detention and injustice affecting the other journalists apart from us who are on remand for the reports they have made and the articles they have written? When will you abandon the rhetoric, ‘They have not been detained for journalistic activities’ that nobody in respected international circles believes anymore?

A final reminder to those who brand the journalists being held in jail thieves, child molesters and terrorists:

The word ‘terrorist’ is used to describe those who engage in acts of political violence or are members of a terrorist organisation. There is no such charge against we members of Cumhuriyet newspaper in either the prosecution decisions or remand orders.