Ümit Özdağ sends a letter from Silivri Prison: 'While I am being held hostage for Öcalan...'

Zafer Party leader Ümit Özdağ, who was detained in Ankara on allegations of insulting AKP Chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been arrested on charges of "publicly inciting the people to hatred and enmity."

Özdağ sent a letter from Silivri Prison, where he is being held.

In the letter he sent to Sözcü Newspaper, Özdağ stated the following:

Dear Sözcü readers:

I convey my love and respects to you from Silivri. As a former parliamentarian and the chairman of a political party, I have been arrested with my constitutional and legal rights suspended. The enemy criminal law applied to the opposition has been applied to me. What is enemy criminal law? For example, the law applied by the white judicial system to Black Americans in the southern states of the USA until the 1960s. For example, the law applied by the German army occupying France to French citizens is also enemy criminal law.

DIFFERENT LAW FOR THE OPPOSITION

Today, different laws are applied to government supporters and opponents in Turkey. A person who calls on the public to raid a consulate is not summoned to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, despite the fact that a consulate was raided upon his call, incidents occurred, and police officers and civilians were injured. Those who threaten society by claiming to possess citizens' personal identification information are also not invited to the prosecutor's office. No ex officio investigation is launched into those who say they will dig up the weapons they buried in the Belgrade Forest if they lose the elections. If you are in the opposition, you are detained even if you do only one percent of these things. Turkey experienced the Sinan Ateş case. Is there any need to say anything else? Our youth are going abroad to escape this unjust enemy criminal law. They are leaving their country by rebelling against a recruitment system that rewards cronyism, not them, and not merit.

SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN

The story of my detention and arrest that I describe below is just one of the enemy criminal law experiences of the opposition, of Turkey's Black citizens who are considered second-class.

At the Mersin AKP provincial congress, Erdoğan claimed that we paid a very heavy price for the policies of the single-party era regarding the nation's faith, history, and culture. On January 20, at the Zafer Party Provincial Chairmen's Workshop in Antalya, I said that policies destroying the nation's faith, culture, and history were pursued not during the Atatürk era, but during the Erdoğan era, and that Erdoğan had allowed FETÖ to establish a parallel state and let spies into the state.

PRINCIPLE OF NATURAL JUDGE VIOLATED

On Monday, January 21, at 19:30, while I was eating at a restaurant in Ankara, they said that my protection police officers wanted to meet with me. We met on the upper floor of the restaurant. I asked, "Is there going to be an assassination, have you come to prevent it? Or is it a detention?" They said it was a detention. We left the restaurant, went to the hospital, and set off for Istanbul at a speed of 150-190 km/h. Thus, I was detained by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, violating the principle of the natural judge, due to a speech I made in Antalya. Is there no chief prosecutor in Antalya? Wouldn't he do his duty if it were a crime? The issue was that the only prosecutor team that would detain me was in Istanbul.

THEY TOOK ME THROUGH THE BACK DOOR

Thousands of people filled the area around the Istanbul Police Department, and they secretly took me into the building from the back. I had a short meeting with my lawyer 2 hours later in what they called the lawyer meeting room. I stated that I would not give a statement at the police station and asked when they could take me to the courthouse. They said at 10:00 in the morning. It became 10:00, and the police said the prosecutor was waiting for a document. My lawyer had told me at night that the only accusation was insulting the president. We entered the prosecutor's office at 13:30 with this information.

THERE WAS NO REPORT

The prosecutor asked questions about insulting the president. The evidence for almost all of my statements about Erdoğan was Erdoğan's own statements. Upon this, the prosecutor said there was a report regarding the incidents in Kayseri. What was this report? When they realized they could not arrest me for insult, the prosecutor had directly asked the Kayseri Police Department if there was a report regarding a link between the incidents that occurred in June 2024 and the Zafer Party, and if so, to send it. Since the Zafer Party had no connection to the incidents, there was no report. Upon this, an unsigned, undated, and unnumbered report was prepared within 2 hours. The report stated, "four Zafer Party members provoked the incidents with messages posted on X accounts."

NO ONE ARRESTED

However, three of these were posted 13 days after the incidents, and one was posted two months ago. Separate non-prosecution decisions had been given for all three. The report stated that Zafer Party accounts provoked the incidents, but according to the cybercrimes unit's explanation, there is no Zafer Party member who was detained or arrested for inciting the incidents. There is not a single Zafer Party member detained or arrested in the street incidents either. The Kayseri Police Department has clearly committed a crime. We will prove this crime with documents. Months have passed since the incidents.

If the Zafer Party had a connection to the incidents, wouldn't the Kayseri Chief Public Prosecutor's Office conduct an investigation? How can the Kayseri Police Department and the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office violate all state traditions and request a report directly from the Kayseri Police instead of the Kayseri Chief Public Prosecutor's Office? I expressed these to the prosecutor. I explained my two X posts that I shared to calm the situation. I stated that I sent three of my deputy chairmen to Kayseri. The prosecutor asked me about 11 of my X posts. None of these had anything to do with the Kayseri incidents. They were posted between 2020 and 2024. Except for the one in 2024, they were all posted during my time as a member of parliament.

ENEMY LAW

He referred me for arrest by claiming that these posts, which had nothing to do with the Kayseri incidents, provoked the Kayseri incidents and posed a "clear and present" threat. Although I was detained for insulting the president, he referred me for arrest for inciting the people to hatred and enmity. Now, I wonder what the prosecutor who had me detained for insulting the president will say?

The judge also continued to violate the law. Although there was no statement in the prosecutor's arrest document that I would flee, and despite the evidence being collected, the judge put himself in the place of the prosecutor and arrested me by claiming that I had a suspicion of fleeing and tampering with evidence.

The application of enemy criminal law did not end there either. Our objection, which revealed all these illegalities with Court of Cassation precedents, was rejected within one day.

WE WILL OVERCOME THE DIFFICULT DAYS

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office requested the file opened against me in 2021 at the parliamentary bureau in Ankara from the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. They said, "Transfer this file to me, I will add it to the investigation I opened." The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office accepted. It is unbelievable, but it happened. If the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, which opens an investigation into a member of parliament speaking in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, is seizing the investigation of the Ankara parliamentary bureau, then there is no point in legal education.

Now the lawyers are preparing to apply to the Constitutional Court. Do I have any expectations? Of course not. Because if the Constitutional Court makes a decision in favor of an opposition citizen, the government does not recognize the decision.

So, am I hopeless? No. We are going through difficult days, but we will overcome them. Despite everything, there are also legal professionals who see us as equal citizens and do not treat us as enemies.

And while I am being held hostage for Öcalan, I will spend this time in Silivri paying tribute to the cherished memories of the martyrs and veterans of the War of Independence and the martyrs of the fight against terrorism, and to the valuable presence of our dear veterans. I am a witness to what a heroic struggle they put up.

News Source: 12punto