The trial of the 19 Anti-militarists for “alienating people from military service” will be held on February 15th

On the 6th day of January, a group of anti-militarists with a majority of anarchists have made a public statement.  The statement was aimed to provide solidarity for Enver Aydemir, a “Conscientious Objector” who is under arrest. Even the writing found on the banner carried by the group was “The Initiative for Providing Solidarity with Enver Aydemir, The Conscientious Objector”. The moment that the group has started to read its statement was also the moment that the police have made clear their malicious intention. The Riot Squad has directed towards the group when they just saw them and encircled them in a pocket. The number of the police officers was about 100 while the group has only 30 people or so. In these kinds of matters, the balance between the ones that resemble the cloudy “freedom” by objecting against murder and the ones that resemble the thing that is self-evident is always unequal. The situation is based on an unequal balance, because it is always easier to bend the knee rather than standing upright. The number of the anti-militarists is few, because it is easier to obey rather than objecting.

 But it is not written in the history yet that the objectors* have been extinct. The objectors are right there, even with their tiny group. Someone can always be found to catch and block when the masters order to do so. Immediately, a police chief has ordered to catch and hold the group members, and the gradeless police officers have caught them. Such a simple relationship… The ones who were harassed even before finishing their “civil right” of making a public statement are the anti-militarists. The point where “The Civilian” becomes a trash and a disburdened trivia is right here. According to the masters, the civilian is the one who obeys the orders, not the one that resists. The blue-uniformed civilians have received the order of capture and they have descended on the anti-militarists nightmarishly. The stomping began with at least three polices on each of the anti-militarists. The police bends the arms, holds the necks, batters the napes in, hits with the boots. In the middle of the clouds of dust, the only certain thing is the number of the ones taken into custody: 23

And then, the time for ceaseless harassment and threats starts, beginning from the Custody vehicle and ending up at the court hall after 24 hours. According to the police, the short haired women are like “horses”, and the long haired men are like “womankind”. That is the way how they try to crush the ones who love the life and refuse to kill and who are aware of the fact that all the horses, all the womankind and all the mankind do breathe air. At the custodial prison, they did not let the anti-militarists to sleep, by slamming the doors all the night. And they tried the anti militarists to sign the ready-prepared legal statements. The anti-militarists have used their rights to remain silent. Then they have been taken to the court hall in the morning. The prosecutor has released 22 of them. But Volkan Sevinç has been arrested. The legal ground fort his arrestment is that, Volkan Sevinç had joined an “illegal” meeting with a penknife which he actually had never owned and which has been deemed as a “weapon” in the police’s point of view. Is it really possible that the ones who had let Mehmet Ali Ağca to live among us, who had taken a photo together with Ogün Samast, who had annihilated* Engin Ceber, who had murders Alexis and Carlo, who had riddled the tiny bodies of Uğur Kaymaz and Ceylan with holes by bullets are capable of qualifying something as a weapon? Is the life that they order us to live is really a life that worths living? Is the water that they serve us worths being drunk? Is the food that they offer us worths being eaten?

Volkan Sevinç is now kept in Sincan as arrested. 19 anti-militarists that have participated in the public statement, including Volkan, will be tried on the court with the accusations of “Alienating people from military service” and “praising a crime and criminals”. 19 anti-militarists. The date of the trial is February 15. While the life itself has transformed into a terrible mangle, while all the faces become indistinct, while the daily life becomes more and more militarized with a deadly color of khaki, this trial is not the only thing that bothers us on these days. We don’t trust anyone other than the ones that we know their names, and we can touch their shoulders and inner consciences; All the ones that have been crushed with steel, with laws and with military boots on these grounds and on all around the world for centuries; the Kurds, the Armenians, the Gypsies, the Negros, the homosexuals, in other words, all the ones that have born differently and all the ones that dream of different worlds, the Anarchists, the communists… They had always been a part of our history from a beginning that we do not know, and until an ending that we know it has not arrived yet. They have not come to an end, and they will not…

Today, the media and the power are settling their accounts with the monsters of their own creation. Mehmet Ali Ağca has become a murderer in the world created by the media. They should face with their responsibility if they decided to call him “murderer” now, if they are ashamed of seeing such a man in public. This is one of the most explicit expressions of dishonesty. Hrant Dink was murdered in a world that was ensanguined along newspaper pages by the master journalists waiting for orders to obey. He is not in this world any more. But he has a son. They should listen to Hrant’s son. That man carries an inner conscience instead of death and busts, he says that he loves people. They should listen to the ones that refuse to murder. They should listen to Volkan Sevinç, they should listen to the unsilenced consciousness. They should keep an eye on their heads not buried in the pillow but raised from the pillow. They should keep an ear on the stories of awakenings and remembrances in a world of deep sleeps and disrememberances. This fire, this enormous flame of the power which has intended to burn down the life, can one day consume their own lives too. Some day, you will also refuse because that voice coming from your inner side will make your flesh crawl, beginning from your consciousness. If you are able to ignore that voice of your inner consciousness, then All-right! Stay there, in your room where you are deaf. Do not wake up, do not open your windows or doors, because the world cannot bear even single one of you…

Once upon a time, so they say, it was a lightness to exist in this world. This life keeps going with the supports and magnificence of the ones that exist by objecting against murder, the ones that persists on being existed. It keeps going despite the fascism and despite the power. And the objectors will never end up.

The Freedom Initiative for Anti-Militarist Prisoners