In a press conference on February 18th, organised by the Solidarity Committee for Political Prisoners in Turkey and Kurdistan, the advocates Aleka Zorbala and John Rachiotis spoke about the recent arrest of four more Turkish refugees on February 10th in Gkyzi area in Athens.
The arrest is a continuance of a pogrom the Greek government carries out since all over 2013 against Turkish activists who live as refugees in Greece and during which more than 16 persons have already been prosecuted. The Turkish refugees in Greece have been exposed to threats, house searches kidnappings from the street, arrests, torture and arrests. As the lawyers stated during the press conference in case of a extradition to Turkey the lives of their clients are in immediate danger.
The arrested are planned to be transferred in different prisons of the country: Housseyn Febzi to Thessaloniki, Cengiz Bayir to Larissa, Bilgehan Karpat to Naflplio and Mechmet Ali Yilmaz (Murat Kurkut) to Ioannena.
As the lawyers insisted the files of the prosecuted are deficient. The data is implausible as for example some are characterised as founders of “terrorist organisations” who were at the time being of the alleged foundation in child age. Furthermore, they expressed their concern about the transfer of the Turkish activists to different countries which would prevent them from having contact with their own people and their lawyers and as such will hinder the preparation of the defense of their clients.
The actual category for the arrest was possession of guns and nothing else. Anyway, under the orders and instructions of the Turkish Secret Service and the U.S. Embassy this category was converted to a large number of categories with the predominant the one of belonging to a terrorist organisation for which there aren’t any existing evidences in the file. The lawyers complained also about alleged torture especially of one of the detainees who was forcible DNA tested, which is prohibited by Greek law. The detainees were also each closed in iron cages of the anti-terror unit. Also the lawyers themselves were harassed when they asked to visit the detainees.