Foto: Huseyin Deniz 7 September 2011 Berlin...

Revision against acquittal. Pinar Selek will stay in danger.

As had been announced, the local court of Istanbul has insisted on its decision of 2001 and 2006 to acquit Pinar Selek of the accusation to have placed a bomb on the Istanbul Spice Bazaar in 1998.

This morning we were informed by our Turkish friends that the prosecutor of that same court in Istanbul did appeal against the latest court decision that actually has amounted to a third acquittal. The prosecutor would have had the right to appeal within 15 days, but he seems to have been in a hurry, so he did on the second day after the trial.

Thus, the proceedings will go back to the General Assambly of the Superior Court in Ankara, the same legal body that has demanded aggravated life sentence last year in September last year. 

A huge number op trial monitors were present at the trial two days ago in Istanbul, among them several Members of the European and German Parliaments as well as leading members of many human rights' organizations, and also of the International, Turiksh and German-Swiss PEN. P.E.N. Germay was represented by Christa Schuenke and Günter Wallraff.

We are dismayed and deeply concerned about this surprising and discouraging development in a legal proceeding that for a few hours seemed to initiate a change in the attitude of Turkish judiciary towards political dissenters. 

 

P.E.N. Germany will continue to back Pinar Selek and support her t