WeeklyWorker

25.07.1996

Showing solidarity

Statement from Liverpool Dockers Shop Stewards Committee delegation to Turkey (July 12-19 1996)

The delegation went to Turkey at the invitation of Turkish trade unionists and the Emek (Labour) Party in order:

July 13 The delegation witnessed in Istanbul a peaceful protest by families of those who disappeared in police custody. The 50 or so demonstrators were surrounded by armoured cars, police marksmen and hundreds of riot police, and after five minutes were violently driven off the street.

July 14 The delegation attended a conference of the Istanbul trade union platform, a gathering of about 1,000 trade union delegates representing the four major trade union confederations. The meeting was to discuss the issue of basic social security and welfare provision for Turkish workers. Striking oil workers were present. Delegates spoke of the employers’ and state’s onslaught on workers’ rights, pay and conditions.

July 15 The delegation participated in the press conference at the court hearing in Istanbul for the case of Metin Goktepe, who was the journalist from the daily paper, Evrensel, beaten to death by police in January this year. The state has since attempted to ban the paper and prosecute its editor. The delegation pledged support for the campaign to bring the killers of Goktepe to justice.

On the same day the delegation witnessed the police make a brutal attack on a demonstration, made up of about 30 children and women. They were assaulted. kicked and beaten by riot and non-uniformed police. Dozens of arrests were made, including many journalists and photographers.

July 16 Billy Jenkins went to Gazi Antep in south-east Turkey, where 20,000 textile workers are on strike for trade union recognition and basic social rights. As Billy was addressing a rally of 6,000 workers, riot police attacked. More than 60 textile workers were arrested. Dozens were injured, some seriously. The leader of the textile workers’ strike committee, Juseyin Ozdemir, was arrested, along with Levent Tuzel, chairman of the Emek Party and the representative of Turkey’s human rights association in Antep.

The police also surrounded the Emek Party office and raided the Istanbul office of Evrensel. On his return journey to Istanbul, Billy Jenkins was subjected to harassment and attempted intimidation by the police.

July 19 The delegation met with lawyers (the Istanbul Association of Contemporary Lawyers) campaigning on issues of human rights, and in particular against torture and abuses of political prisoners.

Over two months ago, more than 2,000 political prisoners in 30 prisons across Turkey started hunger strikes in protest at the inhuman conditions under which they are held. More than 207 prisoners are on strike until death. The first hunger strikers, Aygun Ugur (July 21) and Altan Kerimgiller (July 23), have just died. All are now past recovery.

A mass demonstration was due to take place in Istanbul against all the attacks by the Turkish regime - the police assaults, the legalised murders, the war both against the Kurds and all the working people of Turkey, etc. The demonstration was banned by the police and government.

 

Proposed resolution

We, the Liverpool Dockers Shop Stewards Committee delegation, propose the following, and ask that these be adopted as the basis of resolutions by every section of the labour, trade union, socialist and democratic movement in this country and internationally as a matter of urgency:

1. We condemn absolutely the Turkish state’s gross violations of the most elementary human rights.

In particular we condemn their treatment of political prisoners; their use of terror and barbaric cruelty against peaceful demonstrators; their violent repression of the Kurdish people and of trade unionists and working people; their attempts to terrorise and ban all genuine opposition, whether in the form of political parties, workers’ organisations, any other democratic organisations or the media.

We condemn the moves to ban the Emek Party and the newspaper Evrensel, and defend their right and the right of all other opposition parties, organisations and newspapers to organise and to publish.

2. We express our solidarity and pledge active support for: the textile workers of Gazi Antep; the transport workers on strike in Ankara; the striking oil workers in Ankara; the striking oil workers in Istanbul, and the working class and all oppressed people of Turkey.

We pledge solidarity and active support for the Kurdish people; the families of the disappeared; the political prisoners, especially the hunger strikers now approaching death.

3. We call on the British and international labour and trade union movement to give active support and assistance in whatever way possible to the workers and oppressed people of Turkey. We ask workers not to take holidays in Turkey until the regime has changed.

4. We call on the British government and the European parliament to condemn these gross violations of democratic rights in Turkey, to defend the elementary right to demonstrate and express opposition, and to take urgent action to save the lives of the hunger strikers.