NEWS CENTER -Many people were battered and taken into custody during the police crackdown against participants of the vigil for lawyers on death fast for a fair trial.

 

Police forces attacked the vigil held in front of the Sadi Konuk Hospital in Bakırköy, Istanbul in solidarity with lawyers Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal who have been on hunger strike for months demanding a fair trial.

 

Many people were battered and taken into custody during the police crackdown. The detainees include Timtik’s uncle Yıldırım Deniz, TAYAD member Feridun Osmanoğlu who is 70 years old. The reporters covering the vigil were also attacked by the police and dispersed from the scene.

 

HUNGER STRIKE FOR JUSTICE

 

Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal have been on hunger strike for months and are not released from prison despite being declared unfit for imprisonment by the Forensic Medicine Institute. A complaint to the Turkish Constitutional Court in Ankara was also unsuccessful. The two lawyers, who are currently under observation against their will in various hospitals in Istanbul, remain in custody.

 

Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal are lawyers of the left-wing association "People's Legal Office" (Halkın Hukuk Bürosu) and went on hunger strike together with other imprisoned colleagues in February, which they turned into a "death fast" on April 5th - the "Day of Lawyers". In the complex of proceedings against alleged members of the DHKP-C, the lawyers were sentenced to long prison sentences according to terrorist laws due to contradictory statements of a key witness. With their action they demand a fair trial.