İSTANBUL - The first hearing of the trial against 16 people involved in the Gezi Resistance will be held today.

 

 

An unlawful and untruthful bill of indictment is the last attempt to smear the Gezi Resistance, to depict its basic demands for rights as elements of crime, to distort the historical and legitimate truth of peaceful resistance, and once more, to put Gezi on trial.

 

An irrational bill of indictment, inspired entirely by conspiracy theories and with no basis in factual evidence has been prepared by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, and was accepted in the past week by the Istanbul 30th Heavy Penal Court.

 

16 people are being tried – facing aggravated life imprisonment and a series of additional sentences -, forming the final example showing that the judiciary in our country has become a mere agency charged with serving the government’s survival.

 

The Istanbul 30th Heavy Penal Court accepted this bill of indictment on 4 March 2019, and declared 24-25 June 2019 as the date for the first hearing. Mehmet Osman Kavala and Yiğit Aksakoğlu have been held pending trial on the basis of these fictionalized accusations for almost a year.

 

The Taksim solidarity group said in a statement: "Academics who have demanded peace are being tried and sentenced for carrying out propaganda of a terror organization; lawyers who perform their professional and constitutional duty are being jailed under unimaginable accusations to silence them; journalist seeking the truth are declared terrorists under baseless accusations and no evidence, and we know very well why: This government is an enemy of critical views and voices, and is aware of the deep disquiet its failing policies have created across society."

 

After a press conference in Silivri the hearing is scheduled to open at 10.