Stop European Collaobration with Turkish regime - No Extradition of Bahar Kimyongür

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Tuesday May 02, 2006 18:55 by IPAI isolation at post dot com

BAHAR KIMYONGÜR WAS ARRESTED IN HOLLAND

Bahar Kimyongür, spokesman of the DHKC Information Bureau in Brussels and one of the defendants in the “DHKC-trial” in Belgian Brugge, was arrested in Holland in the night from 27th to 28th of April, after the Dutch police stopped him in a car together with another person, approximately 40 kilometres from Amsterdam. From there he was brought to the detention center at the Schipool Airport, under the pretext of an international arrest warrant.

Bahar is on hungerstrike

A Belgian court has sentenced Bahar Kimyongür to 4 years in prison but during his period of appeal he remain out of bail. He is Belgian citizen and there were no restrictions like a prohibition on leaving the country.

The reason given for his arrest in Holland was, that Turkey wants his extradition and that there was an international arrest warrant against him.

Bahar Kimyongür was brought before the Court of La Haye on Monday evening. The court decided that Turkey’s request for extradition was formally correct. This request was accepted by the court without respecting its details. For that reason the trial was postponed in order to discuss the request for extradition and Bahar Kimyongür was imprisoned and sent to the prison of Doordrecht. It was said, that the first trial will take place only 40 days later.

Furthermore the reason for Turkey’s demand became known. According to these informations, the Turkish state wants his extradition, because of a protest against the former Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs at the European Parlament in Brussels on 28th November 2000. Kimyongür’s lawyers stressed that this demand wasn’t valid with such a reason. They added, that first of all the protest didn’t take place in Turkey but on Belgium soil and that Bahar wasn’t even arrested during this incident.

Secondly, the lawyers said that after they found out that the request for extradition was made on 6th of April 2006, they asked if there hasn’t been such a request in time and that they didn’t receive any answer to this question.

This incident was followed by arbitrariness since the beginning and has climaxed with the arrest.

The request of a country like Turkey, which is known for its injustice in the prosecution, leads to the arrest of a person for several weeks. In collaboration with the European countries, the Turkish state uses any opportunity to silence the revolutionaries, who bring up the reality in Turkey.

On the other hand, the Belgian Committee for the Freedom of Expression and Oranization CLEA, already organized a sery of protests in Brussels, in order to prevent the extradition and to demand freedom for Bahar Kimyongür. In the morning hours of May 1st, 90 persons gathered in front of the Dutch Consulate with banners and pictures of Bahar. The action was also supported by two senators and a couple of teachers.

In a speech, CLEA speaker Daniel Flinker said: “Bahar is a revolutionary. He neither committed any crime in Belgium nor in Turkey. Everything he did, was to announce and expose the murderous character and injustice of the Turkish State. But the new anti-terror laws represent these activities of Bahar as “terrorist” and resulted in the request for extradition by the Turkish state.”

Belgian lawyer Selma Benkhelifa informed about the last developments and added:

“The incident was a complete trap. Bahar was consciously handed over by the Belgian police to the Dutch police. Everything happening is a proof for it. The police report concerning his arrest, said that the car in which Bahar was found by chance, was stopped because breach of limit. But the mentioned car was stopped by two civil police cars. And the police neither said that the car went to fast nor were the driver fined. Furthermore, the lawyers didn’t get any information about the extradition demand, although they asked for it”.

After the statements the press was provided with files prepared in relation to this question.
CLEA members distributed a petition for the immediate release of Bahar Kimyongür and announced, that the collected signatures will be handed over to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the same evening”.

Within only a few hours a group of supporters gathered 830 signatures at different Mayday activities and informed with leaflets about the situation.

In the evening hours a group of people gathered in front of the Ministry and demanded a conversation with the responsibles. But since the police didn’t give long permission for the action and because the necessary responsible weren’t present, the CLEA members decided to hand over the signatures another day and called for another reunion at the university next day, in order to discuss further activites.

(Source: www.halkinsesi-tv.com)

Link of CLEA: www.perso.wanadoo.fr/clea.be

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Protest in front of the Dutch Embassy