DİYARBAKIR - The 'Anonymous witnesses' which came in to effect with the witness protection law continue to be used to be the basis of the heavy sentences in many case files. Some of these anonymous witnesses that lead to the arrest of 16 journalists recently, does not actually exist.

 

The issue of secret witnesses has been on Turkey's agenda for a long time. By removing secret witness statements from the field of law, it has turned into a method of giving direction to politics and intimidating dissidents in Turkey. Despite causing dozens of scandals, the courts still continue to make judgments based on the statements of anonymous witnesses.

 

The issue of “anonymous witness” entered the agenda of Turkey with the witness protection law enacted in 2008. Hundreds of scandals have been revealed since the law came into force. Despite this, the judiciary controlled by the government relies on it for their own agenda.

 

FIRST CASES WHERE ANONYMOUS WITNESSES WERE USED

 

Turkey became acquainted with the Ergenekon cases in 2008 and the “KCK” cases in 2009. Operations for both came one after the other. Whenever there was an operation against Ergenekon, you would know that a KCK operation would follow. AKP had found a way to eliminate its 'enemies' in its own way. The operation was carried out through anonymous witnesses. While the AKP was taking revenge on the Kemalist-nationalists through Ergenekon, it was taking revenge on the Kurdish people through the "KCK". In the 2009 local elections, the DTP had won over a hundred municipalities. Revealing that it could not get over this success with the words "they have reached the border of Armenia", the AKP began to plan to 'discipline' the Kurds through "law".

 

POLITICS DESIGNED BY THE HAND OF LAW

 

Law has always been the medium that designs politics in Turkey. Especially with the new constitution made after the September 12 coup, the law began to take the place of military coups. All kinds of opinions, beliefs, ethnicities, nations, communities, movements and organisations that acted outside the ontological and official ideology of the Republic of Turkey were tried to be suppressed and dispersed based on the "constitution". Many legal coups can be listed in that regard, like the March 2, 1993 coup against the DEP deputies, the closure of dozens of parties from the DEP tradition, the KCK main case, the Gezi case, the Contemporary Lawyers case, and the appointment of trustees to municipalities.

 

THE SECRET PARTNERSHIP OF AKP AND GÜLEN CONGREGATION: ANONYMOUS WITNESS

 

Law has never been used to protect the society and truth in Turkey. It has always been used to protect the state. Since the state was more important than the people, all parties prioritised protecting the state and made laws in that direction. The governments made laws to make themselves permanent. However, no major constitutional changes were made from 1982 to the 2007 referendum. AKP changed a large part of the 1982 constitution, but nothing has changed in terms of essence and understanding. On the contrary, AKP, which was exposed to the grudges of the official ideological law, acted with this understanding itself. Instead of standing against this law, it put on the armor of this law and attacked. With this law, it began to be institutionalized within the state. Until 2016, it placed itself inside all state institutions together with the Gülen community. However, institutionalisation came with contradictions and conflicts. In 2016, the contradictions between them and the community led to a coup attempt. After the failed coup attempt, the AKP seized the opportunity to rule the state on its own. In the 2017 constitutional amendment referendum, it received enough votes and the presidential regime was put in effect. Although the form of government has changed, some of the state's reflexes have never changed.

 

The anonymous witness law was used mostly by the Gülen Community. Police-Prosecutor's Office-Special Authorized Courts could open any case they wanted in cooperation and could do get the decision they wanted. AKP gave all kinds of support to this situation. In fact, there was not much differentiate between the Gülen Community and the AKP until the 2013 Private Teaching Institution crisis. That's why AKP supported all the unlawfulness of the congregation, and sometimes covered it up. The situation changed completely with the December 17-25 operations. After the 2016 coup attempt, AKP started to cooperate with MHP instead of Gülen Congregation and continued the legal coups from where it left off. Witnesses are used as picklocks in the laundering of all kinds of problems they faced.

 

OOPERATION OF POLICE-PROSECUTION-JUDGES

 

The 7 thousand 578-page file prepared by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and the file with 190 defendants was created based on the statements of 8 secret witnesses. Those who were put on trial based on the statements of anonymous witnesses named “Günışığı, Papatya, Mercek, X, Gülşah, Toros, Kar ve Padişah” were sentenced to dozens of years. Hundreds of people, including journalists, MPs, political party leaders, academics, artists and mayors, were sentenced to prison with the statements of anonymous witnesses. The method was simple; the state transformed the information and documents that it had illegally collected into a statement of a witness in court from the mouths of anonymous witnesses and brought them to legal ground. Based on these statements, the court sentenced the defendants. Specially Authorized Courts and Prosecutors specialized in how to punish people in cooperation with the Police. Regardless of whether the evidence was right or wrong, legal or illegal, everyone who came to those courts was definitely punished. It was almost like the Inquisition Courts of the middle ages, the society was subjected to judicial slaughter.

 

'ANONYMOUS WITNESSES THAT 'CAN'T BE FOUND'

 

The protagonist of the file opened against HDP former Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş with a 142 years imprisonment is also an anonymous witness. The statements of anonymous witness named “Mercek” was also used in the KCK main case. The statements of this anonymous witness were made the justification for the sentences given to many politicians. But later it turned out that there is no such person. In other words, it turned out that investigation files were created by creating fake anonymous witnesses over a person who does not exist. Imaginary denounciations were replaced by imaginary anonymous witnesses. However, although this was revealed later, neither the sentence nor the file was dropped.

 

IT TURNED OUT THERE WERE NO WITNESSES!

 

Another person who was investigated based on the statements of anonymous witnesses and was sentenced to hundreds of years in prison is BDP executive Yaşar Karakuş, who was on trial in the Ağrı KCK case. During the trial, Karakuş's lawyers conveyed their request to the court to ask questions to the anonymous witness. The court first requested the Witness Protection Office of the Ağrı Police and then the Erzurum Police Department to have the anonymous witness to be present at the hearing. However, in the reply from both Ağrı and Erzurum, it was stated that there was no such witness.

 

Similar situations were revealed in other files. In the investigation carried out against Kurdish politicians in Mardin after the 2019 local elections, the statements of many anonymous witnesses were also included. However, when the file was opened and the hearings began, it became clear that many witnesses were either 'not found' or did not exist. The request of TJA activist Sevil Rojbin Çetin, who was detained within the scope of the file, to have the anonymous witnesses present at the hearing, remained unanswered at every hearing. The secret witnesses named Malazgirt, Çanakkale, Plevne, Fetih, Ankara, Esirzaparan, Topkapı, Boldpilot, Boksör’, who were coded with numbers and letters but whose names were later disclosed, continue to be 'not found'.

 

Dozens of journalists were detained in the operation carried out last June against Diyarbakır-based free press institutions and their employees. At the end of the eight-day detention period, 16 of the journalists who were brought to the courthouse were arrested. When the arrest warrants were examined, it was seen that the file was full of anonymous and open witness statements. Despite the fact that none of them gave statements agaşnst the detainees, the journalists were arrested on anonymous witness statements. The anonymous witnesses named “Ezel” and “Firar” mentioned in the file were included in almost all the files opened in the last four years. These two anonymous witnesses were the protagonists of the operations carried out in Diyarbakir in 2018. More than 150 people, including journalists, politicians, leaders of labor organizations, women's activists, and co-mayors, were detained on the basis of anonymous witness statements. While many people were sentenced in line with the statements of these witnesses, many others are still on trial.

 

THE LEGITIMATE CASE OF THE PEOPLE IS CRIMINALISED 

 

The AKP-MHP government continues to protect the state like the governments before them. Of course, while protecting the state, they are protecting their own party interests. Instead of putting an end to the anti-democratic practices in Turkey and producing solutions to the problems, they resorted to creating legal covers to suppress the problem. The most legitimate demands of the Kurdish people for national rights are suppressed by law, as well as by many different methods. What the government embraced in the face of the legitimate demands of a people was the statements of "open and anonymous witnesses". In short, the legitimate demands of the Kurdish people, dissidents, women, youth, ecologists, journalists, intellectuals, artists, and academics were put on trial with the statements of anonymous and open witnesses. Demands were criminalized over these statements and the state (or rather power) was loundered. They tried to smother people's legitimate struggle for democracy and freedom with anonymous witness statements. When the policy of denying its 'existence' has collapsed, they are now trying to discredit and blame it.

 

 

MA / Ferhat Akıncı