Critical 'Can Atalay' question from TİP MP Ahmet Şık to Minister Tunç and the People's Alliance: 'Is there a connection to the Sinan Ateş assassination?'

Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) MP-elect and Gezi prisoner Can Atalay has not been released despite the Constitutional Court's second ruling of rights violation. Furthermore, the Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court claimed it did not have the authority to release him despite the Constitutional Court's ruling and sent the file to the Court of Cassation 3rd Criminal Chamber. 

The Court of Cassation 3rd Criminal Chamber had previously resisted the Constitutional Court's earlier rights violation ruling, stating it would not implement the decision and had even filed a criminal complaint against the members of the Constitutional Court.

Lawyers who reacted to the failure to release TİP Hatay MP Can Atalay gathered in front of the Çağlayan Courthouse in Istanbul today. 

TİP Istanbul MP Ahmet Şık reacted harshly to Atalay's continued detention in his speech there.

TOUGH QUESTIONS FROM AHMET ŞIK TO MINISTER TUNÇ AND THE PEOPLE'S ALLIANCE

Şık stated the following:

"Former Ülkü Ocakları president Sinan Ateş was murdered. There is an investigation regarding a file involving certain hitmen with ties to the MHP and an individual who was a member of parliament in the previous term. I am asking the Minister of Justice; does this judicial decision, which commits the crime of abolishing the Constitution regarding Can Atalay, have any connection to the Sinan Ateş assassination or not?

Does it have any connection to the fact that the prosecutor conducting the Sinan Ateş investigation discovered a conversation on the phone of one of the suspects, who is a lawyer, regarding an attack plan against Sinan Ateş between a high-level MHP official and a high-level Ülkü Ocakları official?

"IS CAN ATALAY A PRISONER OF THE POWER STRUGGLE?"

I am addressing the AKP wing. I am addressing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who found this crisis in front of him and is trying to turn it into an opportunity. Is Erdoğan, who started a 40 percent debate regarding the Presidential elections based on this crisis, blackmailing the junior partner of his own government to make a change in the Presidential elections due to the MHP's connections in the Sinan Ateş assassination? Is Can Atalay being kept inside as a prisoner of such a power struggle, as a part of such a terrible judicial order, and as a victim of lawlessness?

"THE ONLY THING WE SHOULD FEAR..."

These same questions need to be asked not only for Can Atalay, but for Çiğdem Mater, Osman Kavala, Tayfun, Mine, Selahattin Demirtaş, Gültan Kışanak, and all Kurdish politicians. 

Citizens who are afraid to support such struggles—struggles for rights, law, democracy, and peace—also need to ask themselves how they will continue their lives without any security. Instead of being a prisoner of this fear, the only thing you should fear is bowing down to tyranny. Fear bowing down to this tyranny, kneeling, and surrendering."