Thirteen lawyers who are members of the Diyarbakir, Erzurum, Van, Hakkari, Sanliurfa, Mardin, Bingol, Antalya, and Bitlis Bar Associations, were sentenced to three years, one month and fifteen days incarceration because of the peaceful protest that they participated in while they were law school students.

In 2011, while they were students in the Faculty of Law, Mesut Aydın, Sultan Uruk, Seyhan Ç. Al, Faruk Bozan, Veysel Kadandır, Serdar Ataman, Emin Bozkurt, Aşık Vangölü, Metin Adıyaman, Hüseyin İzol, Mahsun Kaya, Azad Tanışman and Berivan Örenç held a protest to boycott an exam so as to commemorate the victims of Roboski, where thirty four civilian were killed as a result of bombing by the Turkish Air Force.

These protesters later became lawyers and registered with different Bar Associations in Turkey’s Kurdish region. Although the protesters were at first acquitted of the accusation of spreading terrorist propaganda, the Court of Cassation quashed the acquittal and decided that they should be sentenced for abetting a terrorist organisation under Arts. 314 § 2 and 220 §6-7 of the Penal Code.

On 17 February, 2020, the Diyarbakir Heavy Penal Code sentenced the lawyers Mesut Aydın, Sultan Uruk, Seyhan Ç. Al, Faruk Bozan, Veysel Kadandır, Serdar Ataman, Emin Bozkurt, Aşık Vangölü, Metin Adıyaman, Hüseyin İzol, Mahsun Kaya, Azad Tanışman and Berivan Örenç to thirty seven months and fifteen days of incarceration.

Lawyers have the right to appeal against the judgment, but If the judgment is upheld by the Appeal Court, the lawyers will be incarcerated and disbarred.

Categories: Unjust / Wrongful Convictions