Celalettin Can placed in cell 19

CHP Istanbul Member of Parliament Barış Yarkadaş said, “The AKP, priding itself for putting coupists on trial, has passed into history by jailing human rights defender Celalettin Can for his anti-12 September rhetoric.” Yarkadaş yesterday visited our newspaper’s Executive Board Chair Akın Atalay, Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu and reporter Ahmet Şık along with HDP party assembly member Celalettin Can of the 78 grouping in Silivri Prison.
 
Yarkadaş, noting that Akın Atalay, Murat Sabuncu and Ahmet Şık are in good health and spirits, commented, “Their sole concern is the bad way things are going in Turkey. I can say they spend 24 hours thinking about Turkey.” Yarkadaş, saying that the Cumhuriyet staffers will appear before a judge once more on 9 March and calling on the trial to be monitored, said, “On that day, Atalay and Sabuncu will have spent seventeen months in jail and Ahmet Şık fifteen. And, on that day, everyone will see once more the extent injustice has attained in Turkey.”
 
Yarkadaş continued, imparting his impressions from his talk with Celalettin Can, “Can remained in detention for nineteen years in the regime the generals set up after the 12 September fascist coup. He has now been placed in cell 19 as if by irony. He fought for years to hold the coupists to account. However, unfortunately, all of these efforts of his are now placed before him as ‘charges’. Can raised the question in our talk, ‘If these are crimes, what is to be said about what the AKP has done?’ He then recalled that, ‘The AKP repealed temporary Article 15 that protected the coupists at our request’.”
 
Yarkadaş, pointing out that, following the operation against Cumhuriyet newspaper, Can’s coming in front of the newspaper building and making a statement here has also been adduced as evidence of organisation membership, said, “He is now the only person from among the Wise People to be detained. After having joined the Committee of Wise People, Can moved close to the HDP and became a member. He wants to make a peaceful effort towards a solution to the Kurdish problem. Now, however, he is detained for being in the HDP.”
 
He was about to go into hospital
 
Yarkadaş, also noting that Can had very serious health problems and was in absolute need of treatment, said, “It is impossible for Can to remain in prison in this condition. He was in fact about to go into hospital on the day he was arrested.”
 
Yarkadaş, saying, “Can’s protesting against the detaining of HDP General Chair Selahattin Demirtaş and Diyarbakır Mayor Gültan Kışanak has been deemed to be the component of a crime,” continued, “Can asked for help for the blanket campaign his party started for children in Rojava. He was asked if he had sent fridges to the terrorist organisation’s members in the mountains. To this question, Can said, ‘The mountains are cold anyway. What are they going to do with a fridge?’”