Can Atalay addresses the TBMM General Assembly from Silivri: 'No matter what you do...'

Deliberations on the 2025 Central Government Budget Law Proposal and the 2023 Central Government Final Account Law Proposal have begun in the TBMM General Assembly. While Group Chairman Abdullah Güler and Deputy Chairman Efkan Ala were speaking on behalf of the AKP Group in the General Assembly, the TİP released a video on social media featuring Can Atalay, whose parliamentary membership was revoked, speaking on the budget negotiations.

The TİP's post included the note: "Currently, AKP members are speaking in the TBMM General Assembly. We invite our people not to listen to their lies, but to listen to Can Atalay, who is being held captive in Silivri for defending the rights of the working people."

The statements made by Can Atalay in the video are as follows:

"Honorable deputies, even if you do not want to remember, even if you want to forget and make others forget by ignoring it, I am addressing the Grand National Assembly of Turkey General Assembly from Silivri Prison as a deputy elected by the votes of the people, who is no different from any of you. Honorable General Assembly, my question is this: Is there a valid Constitution that serves as the basis for every decision and action you are currently discussing, including the budget? While you are concerned with how much of a share will be allocated to which institution from the budget, I wonder how much interest and attention is being paid to the fact that the Constitution, which is the source of legitimacy for everything in our country, is being trampled upon? The Constitutional Court has ruled regarding my parliamentary membership that 'a de facto situation was created by reading a document that has no place in Turkish law in the TBMM General Assembly.' Despite this, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which is tasked with protecting the Constitution, and its members, who have sworn on their honor to perform this duty, have bowed to this de facto situation. This is the situation; it is clear enough to not require interpretation. The palace regime has suspended the Constitution. The meaningless negotiations you are conducting are taking place under this order."

'I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO EXPLAIN HOW PRIVATIZATIONS CAN TURN INTO A MURDER WEAPON'

Honorable General Assembly, if I could have participated in the parliamentary work, I would have liked to make detailed, concrete speeches. For example, I would have had quite a lot to say about the Ministry of Environment or the Ministry of Culture. I would have liked to explain how public resources were plundered through cases I acted as a lawyer for, which I can list firsthand, such as Gezi Park, Taksim Square, Sulukule, Validebağ, Emek Cinema, Galataport, and the Northern Forests. I would have liked to explain again and again, so that no one forgets, how privatizations can turn into a murder weapon, as in the Çorlu Train Massacre; the struggle we waged against your order that protects the profits of bosses rather than the lives of people in Soma, Kınık, and Savaştepe; or the solidarity dinner given by bosses to boost the morale of the business owner immediately after the Sakarya-Hendek Fireworks Factory explosion, before the workers who died had even been buried.

'NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, WE WILL NOT ABANDON THIS COUNTRY TO THOSE WHOSE ONLY SACRED VALUE IS MONEY'

The Ministry of National Education is chasing after municipal daycare centers while there are dozens of uninspected religious community and sect dormitories. I became the lawyer for the families of our children who burned in a dormitory in Aladağ. I have come to know closely the system they established through the cooperation of the ministry, the province, the district governorship, sects, and religious communities to undermine secularism and hand over the youth to sects and communities. I would have liked to shout these crimes in the faces of those responsible. And I would have liked to ask: Is there a budget you have allocated so that our citizens are not killed and can live humanely? For instance, so that children can have one healthy meal in schools, for a healthcare system where they cannot reach out for money to women's freedom or newborn babies, for the people of a city that was destroyed by the February 6 earthquake and is right next to a war, namely Hatay, who are trying to recover? There is not! But we will continue to struggle and resist to make it happen. No matter what you do, we will not abandon this country or its people to those whose only sacred value is money. I greet the General Assembly with respect."

News Source: 12punto