02 December 2011

The International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), an organization of human rights lawyers committed to the protection and advancement of the basic rights of peoples throughout the world, condemns the arrest of Kurdish lawyers in Istanbul, Turkey.

Delivered during the First Assembly of National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)-Bicol by Marilyn B. Estrellado, the surviving spouse of Rodel Estrellado, Bayan Muna member in Sorsogon, Bicol, Philippines)

For the second time we travelled with two colleagues from the Schoolplein Advocaten, Utrecht, to Diyarbakir in Turkey in order to attend, as international observers, the 21st hearing of the mass trial against 152 defendants: the so-called KCK trial in Diyarbakir. This time, with the delegation was the Dutch journalist Vijdan Yildirim, who accompanied us a translator.

Since the 21^st hearing of the trial, took place on April 19, 2011, two additional hearings have taken place where the lawyers of the suspects were, as a way of protest, not present at the court proceedings. Outside the Court, the lawyers once again announced their demands: that the court recognize the defendant’s right to a defense in their native language (Kurdish,, that a this court’s competence is reviewed in terms of handling of the case, and finally that all defendants in this case are to stand trial simultaneously.