10/10/2013
To the press and to the public,

After the unlawful police violence unleashed on those who attempted to stop the unauthorized construction at Taksim Gezi Park on 27 May 2013, a construction which set to destroy our trees—our natural and historical wealth—the popular demand for “healthy urbanization and livable cities,” amplified by the larger demand from millions of citizens for more freedom and more democracy revealed a strong social sensitivity across Turkey that became synonymous with GEZI PARK.
With explicit orders from the government, which preferred to suppress peaceful demonstrations that mobilized against the police violence across Turkey, security forces unleashed vicious and unlawful violence on the people. Chemical agents, plastic bullets, and water cannons were used in a deadly manner and millions of people gathering in public squares across Turkey were directly targeted to the extent that tear gas was used even inside the buildings that people took refuge. Because of such targeted attacks of the police, seven young people died, roughly eight thousand people got hospitalized and 14 citizens lost an eye. In addition, around four thousand people were detained, and more than hundred people were arrested. It was also widely reported that women taken into custody systematically faced sexual harassment by the police.
As the entire world has witnessed in the course of Taksim Gezi events, as a country that bears the traces of civilizations that date back thousands of years, we cherish peace, love and tolerance. Those who desire and harbor violence and war are those in power, the conspirators of global rulers. Extensive violation of universal human rights, and of the European Convention on Human Rights in the first place, and the blocks on domestic law have compelled us to take this issue to international platforms.
To that end, reports have been prepared by the Amnesty International in the first place, the Turkish Medical Associations Council, Taksim Solidarity, the Human Rights Association, the Contemporary Lawyers’ Association and other related institutions, about the course of the events and the violence of the police, and these reports were presented to the relevant commissions and groups of the European Commission and Parliament.
Furthermore, during the investigation of complaints concerning the gross violations of human rights carried out by Turkish police forces, domestic justice for victims has been denied because of the obstruction from local political powers, security forces and judicial institutions. No policemen were called to make a statement except for the cases of Ethem Sarısülük and Ali İsmail Korkmaz, whilst the perpetrators who caused other deaths and injuries have not even been identified.
Since the beginning of the democratic protests, which demanded a new political order, on the 27th of May 2013, the search for justice has become ineffective internally within these three contexts:
1- While human rights violation cases have dramatically increased in Turkey, the chances of obtaining justice in these cases have drastically (almost at negligible levels) decreased.
2- The rate of effective results of the investigation and trial process subject to violence, torture and ill-treatment of the police and other public officials has been consistently very low.
3- Particularly, during the the investigation into the killing of Ethem Sarısülük, Ali İsmail Korkmaz and Abdullah Cömert, domestic law and litigation processes has revealed to become dysfunctional in a precise manner.
The fundamental element disabling domestic law, on the other hand, is the attitude of the political rule that encourages police violence, and the authoritarian pressure on the legal power to refrain from punishing, hence protecting, administrative executives and the police who are responsible for the violence.
Given the phenomena and necessity arising thereof, as briefly explained above, today, without having exhausted the means of domestic jurisdiction, we are filing our applications with the aim of taking the related cases to the European Court of Human Rights.
Employment of practices that are adopted by military coups, such as raiding homes, arbitrary detention, naked body search, forced fingerprints, maltreatment, indictment from police records, and defining “terrorist groups” from among football fan groups, university students and trade associations in context of the Gezi Park events, has reached inacceptable extent in terms of democracy and universal human rights and environmental rights. Further, highly critical decisions in terms of universal rights are taken in in the “democracy package” recently announced in Turkey, and any meetings and demonstration marches using our freedom of expression and expressing our democratic demands are subjected to the permission of the police.
As a society, we are concerned about such attempts which, instead of adopting a governing approach that primarily perceives the problems, demands and expectations, lead our country to a deadlock with policing security practices that criminalize democratic responses, declare all individuals as guilty and terrorist.
In this context, we call everyone in the world, particularly the relevant institutions, to isolate this campaign for essential human rights and environmental rights from political and economic conflicts of interest, and respect “the law, democracy and human rights”, and extend their support to us.
Sincerely,

TAKSIM SOLIDARITY
HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION
CONTEMPORARY LAWYERS ASSOCIATION
ETHEM SARISULUK’S FAMIL AND ATTORNEY
ALI ISMAIL KORKMAZ’S FAMILY AND ATTORNEY
ABDULLAH COMERT’S FAMILY AND ATTORNEY