A.I. on the Manisa-trail

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

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Press Agency Ozgurluk
For justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan!
Website: http://www.ozgurluk.org                          
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From: Amnesty International <amnesty at oil.ca>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: TURKEY: Appeal Court overturns student POC sentences
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Date: 25 Mar 1998 08:07:44 GMT
Organization: ?
Message-ID: <6fae0g$1bis$1 at news.missouri.edu>
Resent-From: owner-amnesty-l at oil.ca

* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International *
AI INDEX: EUR 44/14/98
19 March 1998

PUBLIC STATEMENT

TURKEY

Court of Appeal overturns prison sentences against student prisoners of
conscience

Following intense campaigning by Amnesty International and by student
groups inside Turkey, yesterday the Ninth Chamber of the Court of Appeal
overturned a series of heavy prison sentences which had been imposed on
five students by Ankara State Security Courts.

     Students who had been conducting a peaceful campaign for changes to
the education system had been subjected to torture in police custody and
sentenced to up to 18 years' imprisonment on apparently bogus charges of
membership of an illegal organization.

     The sentences were overturned on technical grounds including that the
prosecution had failed to investigate whether the illegal organization of
which the students were supposed to be members actually existed -- an issue
 raised in an Amnesty International report last September.

     In recent months Amnesty International sections arranged public
meetings  in Belgium, France, Germany, Holland and Israel where fellow
students from Turkey spoke and showed films to raise awareness of this case
 as well as meeting politicians and government representatives.

     The five students, Ahmet Askin Dogan, ?zg?r T?fek?i, B?lent Karakas,
Metin Murat Kalyoncugil and Mahmut Yilmaz, are still in custody pending a
second hearing of the trial. Amnesty International will continue to
campaign for their release and for the prosecution of their torturers.

**********************************

For further information please refer to Amnesty International report:
Student campaigners tortured and imprisoned, September 1997; AI Index: EUR
44/54/97.


Note: for Background on the Manisa-trail see
http://www.ozgurluk.org/hrindex.html

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