This text is also available in Turkish and German
On 16th of May 2022, Revolutionary Journalist Özgül Emre was abducted by German police in Mannheim on daylight. Next day, police raided the house of İhsan Cibelik, a member of the revolutionary music band Grup Yorum. He was forcibly detained resulting in bruises and abrasions on his body. Both of them are taken to respective courts and in a fraction of second these courts decided on the arrest of them. Özgül Emre was taken to JVA Rohrbach prison and İhsan Cibelik was taken to JVA Köln-Ossendorf. Today another anti-fascist, Serkan Küpeli, was detained in Hamburg.
The German state based these raids, detentions and arrests on the Article 129-b. Article 129-b of German law is specifically designed to suppress Turkish revolutionaries and designate them as “terrorists”. Previously, in Stuttgart, 5 Turkish anti-fascists were sentenced to years of prison time. Their crimes? Organizing Grup Yorum concerts, distributing magazines, organizing picnics, supporting resistance, continuing association activities… Thanks to German Imperialism, we learned that all of these activities are “terrorist” activities.
But we know who are the real terrorists. Just this week, Germany’s shipment of heavy weapons and armory arrived in Ukraine. NATO, US and European imperialists turned Ukraine into a battlefield for their own gain, and now they work on creating a perpetual warzone with the Nazi Azov Battalion armed with their weapons.
This is called terrorism. You can not hide behind rhetorics of violence when your system, for which you are killing millions to keep it intact, is THE main source of violence. How a musician, a journalist, a young person with anti-fascist beliefs can be terrorists, but you are the keeper of the World peace when you are arming Nazis?
İhsan is a revolutionary musician from early times of Grup Yorum until now. When solitary confinement type of prisons were introduced in Turkey as a program to subjugate revolutionaries to NATO plans, he used his body as a barricade and went on indefinite hunger strike (death fast) for 253 days. He is diagnosed with Wernicke Korsakoff as a result of this hunger strike.
Özgül is a journalist, worked in Kurtuluş Magazine in the high point of revolutionary struggle of Turkey in 1990s. As an exiled revolutionary in Germany, she worked in wide range of committees; from anti-drug committees to anti-racism committees.
Serkan put his energy in the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist struggle of his people for years.
Gangster-like raids where people are kidnapped on the streets and attacks on our right to organize, assemble and attacks on freedom of expression cannot stop revolutionaries.
FREEDOM FOR ALL REVOLUTIONARY PRISONERS!
BEING A REVOLUTIONARY IS NOT A CRIME!
FREE ÖZGÜL, İHSAN AND SERKAN!
We will be in streets, demanding justice for Özgül, Ihsan and Serkan in front of Federal Ministry of Justice
Mohrenstr. 37, 10117
Berlin
20 May 2022 13:00