Thread by @freegrupyorum

Today, 3 Grup Yorum members will be in court.

One of them, Ibrahim Gokcek, has been on hunger strike + death fast for over 240 days.

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We've begun to enter the court room. Unfortunately not everyone will be able to enter due to the size of the room.

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All 3 Grup Yorum members were brought to the courtroom. Lawyer Yaprak Türkmen is presenting the recusation demands.

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İbrahim Gökçek, Barış Yüksel, and Emel Yeşilırmak are now in court.

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İbrahim Gökçek has started his defense.

"I have been on death fast for 242 days. I want justice. I want to live as a folk artist. I want all the obstacles in front of this to be removed."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"I have come all the way here. Can I come to this hall once again, my lawyers, can the viewrs see me again? I don't know. I could die. I may be crippled. I could lose my memory. So I came up here, there are some things I want to say."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"Why did this happen? How did I come to this period? How big a crime did I commit? I want to talk about this. First of all, I would like to thank my lawyers, families, artist friends, and Grup Yorum workers."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"I am a 15-year Grup Yorum worker. I am a folk artist. We did art just as Ruhi Su, Dadaloğlu and Pir Sultan did art. We were not a palace clown."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"There is a lot to be told. There is a lot to ask for account. I've been waiting for justice for 242 days. Who am I? İbrahim Gökçek. I have been a Grup Yorum worker for 15 years. I am a folk artist." #FreeGrupYorum

İbrahim Gökçek: "I created compositions. I'm a bass guitar artist. I went to over 60 cities in my country. I went to dozens of European countries. I gave concerts to hundreds of thousands of people. It continued until the 2016 OHAL."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"On July 15, 2016, I was giving a concert to 40 thousand people in Hatay Samandağ. The policemen who said that the "banners will come down" and "you will leave after a song" disappeared all of a sudden."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"After 2017, a big political lynch started against GY. Cultural center was raided 12 times. Is it raided? Are the instruments destroyed? Yes. Our hair was removed from the roots. Piano keys were broken one by one. What kind of hostility is this? What did we do?"

İbrahim Gökçek:

"We have experienced all this because we continue to sing hopeful folk songs. I do not accept these things. The essence of this case is not what secret witnesses say. We would be blamed without them, they are just figures."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"The cultural center which I am an owner of, was raided day and night. I want Grup Yorum members to be released. We are artists, we are the pride of this country."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"Be sure, when this process passes, you will be the first they will sell out. These are like this. We are not like Hasan Kaçan and Yavuz Bingöl. We don't throw around dollars like Alişan. We are the artists of the people." #FreeGrupYorum

"We are in the 21st century. Warrants about us are issued, concerts are forbidden. Is it Texas here? What did we do? We gave instrument training to our children. We made art. They threatened the families of children we educated. So what did this system give these children?"

"Today is Valentine's Day. Has no meaning for me. Today is my wedding anniversary. I was on trial with my wife, who is also an artists, but the case split.. I would have seen her today. I would like to drink pickle juice with my wife. I'm on death fast. Shame on this system."

İbrahim Gökçek:

"We held these concerts with our own effort. We made a pen, we sold a pen. I made a donut, I sold it. That's how we paid for our concerts."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"We had a concert for 1 million people. The first square concert we will hold now would be at least 3 million people."

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"What did this period do? We couldn't do a concert? No, Grup Yorum continued to perform concerts and want to perform concerts. We continued to compose. I made 10 songs in prison. I composed compositions for Sibel Ünli, for our people living in Elazig Earthquake."

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Gökçek:

"I did not run away, I was in my cultural center. If there was law or justice, I would go to the prosecutor's office with my lawyers. In this country, trust in law has fallen to one in a thousand."

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Gökçek:

"In the past, Nazım Hikmet is called a terrorist just as we are. He (Erdogan) defended Nazim poems. Today the president is reading his poems, and they call us a terrorist today. We defend his poems too."

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Gökçek:

"I continued to do my art in my cultural center. Stop attacking Grup Yorum. No one can destroy GY. How many powers came and passed, AKP will be destroyed tomorrow. GY remains. Nobody can destroy people who risk death, especially to make their art."

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Gökçek:

"When Grup Yorum was established, I was 5 years old. Today, Grup Yorum is 35 years old. Grup Yorum will grow with today's 5-year-old children." #FreeGrupYorum

Ibrahim:

"You need to risk death to make art in Turkey today. Do I really want to die? No. I want to live, have a concert, play my bass guitar. Remove the obstacles in front of us. Do not come to our art with heavy weapons and heavy punishments."

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Gökçek:

"Don't be our murderer! Don't kill us! Let us live! Anything can happen but we do not submit to this injustice. (Addressing the president of the court) We do not submit to injustice even for you, if you are an enemy, we are resisting even for you. ++

We are not dishonest low people."

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İbrahim Gökçek:

"Again, I would like to thank all my lawyers, my friends and artists. I demand my release and ultimately my acquittal. I wish to be able to meet in liberated concerts in liberated days."

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Emel Yeşilırmak started her defense after İbrahim Gökçek;

"We were invited to an event to be held after the killing of 301 miners in Soma. After participating in this, a decision was made to arrest us."

"I was put on the lists, they were after me enough to learn the medicines and shampoos I used."

"To come here from Okmeydanı meant to be shot 10 times. Then there were the lists about me (the wanted lists), which say I should be neutralised."

"We have been jailed for 1 year with no reason. Anatolian peoples are used to suffering persecution and living their beliefs even if they are hidden. Anatolia is full of underground cities."

"Files about me were written in the indictment, you tried to overwrite the allegations about me by writing the same file 6 times.
All the lawsuits filed against me were for the struggle for rights, you sentenced me to 5 years for participating in May Day"

"İbrahim Gökçek is one of the oldest Yorum members. On death fast today. Ümit İlter is one of the most powerful socialist poets of this country, and he writes his poems in prisons like other socialist poets."

Emel Yeşilırmak finished her defense.

'I have the honour of doing my job for the people.' Barış Yüksel started his words like this.

Barış Yüksel:

"I am an engineer. We went to a village at the request of the family, whose light was cut off, and solved their problems together with them, we produced their water turbines and their electricity."

Barış Yüksel:

"If we were to make a 'Garden of Vahdettin', the current powers would be our best friends. No, we built a peoples garden."

Barış Yüksel:

"I am also a musician. I experienced the honour of seeing the enthusiasm of the crowd at every concert that I performed on with Grup Yorum"

Barış Yüksel:

"Our cultural center has been raided and destroyed several times unlawfully and arbitrarily. We set up a studio to protect our instruments and lives in our cultural center."

Barış Yüksel:

We are neither the first artists in the world nor the last to live and produce under the conditions of secrecy! For example, Nazım Hikmet and Theodroakis were forced to live secretly. The most beautiful works belong to their secret lives.

Barış Yüksel:

I was on hunger strike for most of the year while in detention. So apparently I managed an organisation whilst I was on hunger strike?

Barış Yüksel:

As a member of Grup Yorum, I am honoured to have a 190 day hunger strike. Today, two GY members raise this honour even more. Mustafa Kocak has been on death fast for 227 days.

Barış Yüksel:

8 lawyers who have been sentenced by your court are honoured not to submit to injustice, and they want justice for Grup Yorum and Mustafa Koçak. They are on an indefinite hunger strike.

The court delegation has decided for a break.