The court sentenced Turkish Medical Association (TTB) President and Evrensel’s writer Prof. Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı to 2 years 8 months and 15 days in prison and ordered her release.A large number of people gathered at the İstanbul Courthouse in the early hours of the morning for the verdict hearing of the case against TTB President Prof. Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı at İstanbul 24th High Criminal Court. "We are here to take Şebnem Hoca," said the statement of those who came to the courthouse, "We stand up for Şebnem Korur Fincancı, our future and our organisation. Fincancı, who was asked for her last words in the hearing, said that the main target of the trial was the TTB and explained her reasons one by one.
Şebnem Korur Fincancı, who was brought to the courtroom drew attention with her fleece with the TTB emblem on it. Those who came to support her called out "we have come to get you" and mutual expressions of affection were used.A significant number of those who came to support Fincancı were able to enter the courtroom. Saturday People, Labour Party Chair Ercüment Akdeniz, CHP MP Sezgin Tanrikulu, HDP MPs Oya Ersoy, Hüda Kaya, Filiz Keresticioğlu, Züleyha Gülüm, Musa Piroğlu, Necdet İpekyüz, CHP İstanbul Provincial Chair Canan kaftancıoğlu, Evrensel Newspaper Editor-in-Chief Fatih Polat, DİSK Executive Board Member and Gıda-İş Chair Seyit Aslan, KESK Co-President Mehmet Bozgeyik, TMMOB President Emin Koramaz, KESK, DİSK, SES, İHD, EMEP, Left Party, Union for Democracy representatives, CPME (Permanent Committee of European Physicians) Vice President Dr. Ole Johan Bakke and representatives of international rights organisations, Ole Johan Bakke and representatives of international rights organisations were among those who came to support Fincancı.
TTB Central Council President Prof. Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı made her defence. Fincancı said that the main target of the trial is the Turkish Medical Association (TTB).Starting her defence by talking about the solidarity with her and her organisation TTB for days, Fincancı said: "It is very important to witness this solidarity, regardless of what you decide. This year we (TTB) will celebrate the seventieth anniversary of its foundation by law. Of course, they were founded in Ankara and İstanbul from 1929. But I think it was only after 1953 that it found its place in the constitution and was formed within such a framework. I have also expressed it in the previous hearings. I mean, I have expressed it in my statements. Of course, there is an aspect towards freedom of expression and scientific freedom. It is certain that they are determined to silence the society and create fear. I mean, even the front of the courthouse shows us that after I gave an interview, no one could talk about chemical weapons and this shows that this political climate of fear has been created. But you know that fear is useless."
Fincancı said that the main target of the trial was the Turkish Medical Association and explained this situation in the following words:
Because it demands qualified, free, equal and free healthcare services for everyone in their mother tongue. For prioritising social, preventive health services. For opposing the commercialisation and privatisation of health. For opposing the money to be paid for city/corporate hospitals to mortgage the future of our country for 25 years. For defending the economic and personal rights of physicians. For opposing unqualified medical education. For strengthening the data received from the field from the pandemic with scientific data and turning the turquoise picture of the government into a black picture with the statements based on the truth. For showing the collapse in health to everyone...
Fincanı explained that the society does not trust justice with the following words:
"While Turkey ranks 127th out of 139 countries in terms of the rule of law, 60% of the society does not trust the judiciary, and ranks first in Europe in terms of corruption; TTB is targeted because it opposes all kinds of lawlessness. No matter how much they try to use hostile criminal law, the masses they try to antagonise trust TTB. The TTB was the most trusted institution during the pandemic, and at the same time it is the last among the least trusted institutions in the country. However, 69 per cent of society does not trust justice. Furthermore, one in two people think that people are in prison because of their opinions and one in three people think that political opponents are being punished. It must be very upsetting for you to have such thoughts about you."
Fincancı continued her criticism of the trial, the court panel and the prosecutor and said, "The prosecutor who tried to teach me my job in this case, it turns out that he also knows how to make documentaries, he was trying to teach documentary filmmaker Sibel Tekin, my ward mate, about documentary filmmaking, and he said, 'You cannot make documentaries in the dark'."
Fincancı continued as follows:
"In 8 days it will be 16 years since my comrade Hrant Dink was murdered. I have never been able to visit the Four-Legged Minaret where my dear friend Tahir Elçi was murdered. The appointed minister said there were no political murders. Sinan Ateş was murdered just recently. Who commits these murders? In this country, killing people is not enough to keep someone in prison, but expressing a scientific opinion is enough to keep someone in prison. Researchers have to go to prison in this country. Because we are labelled as traitors. I cannot leave the fate of this country in the hands of some people. Let it never be forgotten that they were also tried in courts. This is what we stand against, evil should not infect anyone. This country has Eichmanns too."
Fincancı said, "The real traitors who handed over the fate of this country to the hands of others in exchange for profit will also be tried! Obeying orders does not make anyone irresponsible. This is what we stand against; so that evil does not infect anyone..." and concluded her speech.
Prof. Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı's speech was applauded by the audience in the hall.
The court sentenced Şebnem Korur Fincancı to 2 years, 8 months and 15 days in prison for making propaganda for a terrorist organisation and ordered Fincancı's release.
The verdict was greeted with great joy both inside and outside the courtroom. Many people marched in front of the courthouse chanting "Şebnem Hoca is our honour", "Long live our organised struggle", "TTB is marching, the struggle is growing". Ali İhsan Ökten, 2nd President of TTB, made the statement in front of the courthouse.
Ökten's statement on behalf of the Central Council of the Turkish Medical Association is as follows:
"Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı has been released. A process that should never have happened has ended after more than 2 and a half months. Our Central Council President Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, who was arrested on 26 October 2022, disregarding the principles of democratic rule of law and respect for professional independence, was released today.
Since the days of Dr. Nusret Fişek and Dr. Ata Soyer, the tradition of the Turkish Medical Association has been the most important defender of the right to health and the values of medicine. Of course, the governments have not left such an activity unpunished. Presidents and members of the Central Council of the TTB have always faced investigations and punishments. We see the unlawful sentence given to Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı as a continuation of these medical trials. In our minds and conscience, this sentence is null and void.
However, the current ruling circles, which have turned detention into a method of punishment, have made statements throughout the detention period confessing that their goal is actually to intervene in the TTB, and the investigation process against Şebnem Hoca has been tried to be turned into a lever for this goal. Yesterday, we were in front of the Ankara Dışkapı Courthouse for the hearing of a baseless lawsuit filed for the dismissal of the Central Council of the TTB. We see your intention and we state very clearly, you will not succeed.
We reject the anti-democratic intervention efforts against the TTB, which aim to make the existing organisation even more tutelary. Our physicians' organisation, together with our returning central council president Dr. Şebnem Korur Fincancı, and with the strength it draws from the history and traditions of our professional organisation, will play its role at the turning point in front of our country; it will ensure that the TTB and our country do not surrender to the darkness.
Physicians will not be silenced, TTB cannot be silenced!"
TTB President Fincancı left the prison around 18.00. Fincancı's release was greeted with enthusiasm. Şebnem Korur Fincancı tried to greet those who came to support her almost one by one.
Fincancı spoke as follows:
"As for the threat to close down the TTB, this is not that easy, friends. As you saw in today's hearing, our colleagues from the World Medical Association and the European Standing Committee of Physicians were here. To close down the medical organisation of a country is also to eliminate all relations with the world. We are the representative of universality in the world. They are natural human rights defenders not only within these borders, but for people all over the world, for all living creatures, for the earth. Therefore, their imprisonment and the closure of their organisations are out of the question. They can make such attempts. They have done so before, but in the end they had to give up. We will continue this struggle to make them give up again."
"Now let me raise one or two issues about the prison. We know that there are very serious problems especially in the women's wards. There are women who came from abroad and were arrested here and are being tried for 25 years. They are non-citizens, they have no lawyers, they have no money, they have to work for very low wages in these privatised and commercialised prisons in order to survive."
"Access to health care is limited. Many people avoid being taken to hospital due to being brought in and out in handcuffs and extremely uncomfortable transport vehicles."
"Beyond that, of course, isolation has reached a very serious level. Especially people are prevented from seeing each other. There are people who have been in isolation for years without seeing anyone. "
"It is the responsibility of all of us to stand in front of these initiatives that are harmful for all living things, for the earth and the universe we live on. For this reason, I would like to thank you very much for standing by our side and being our travelling companions in this responsibility. In this process, in an order that is meaningless and, as dear Nilgün Toker said, absurd, where everything is possible, we continue and will continue to struggle by not worrying about this, by not regressing in the face of this. I would like to thank all my lawyers who are with us in this struggle, who insist on law and justice in a country that has abolished the law, and also those who stand side by side with us in the Parliament and try to make our voices heard in the Parliament, and of course my dear companions, the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey and my friends from whom I learnt about human rights, my comrades who stand side by side with us in the struggle for medicine, who are subjected to oppression themselves, who do not know what organisation they are, who continue this struggle while being threatened with being tried for membership of an organisation."
"Dear press labourers, your efforts to report news despite all the pressures are very valuable. Therefore, I would like to thank those who have been our companions in this struggle, especially my newspaper Evrensel."
Regarding the allegations that the Turkish Armed Forces used chemical weapons in the operations, TTB President Şebnem Korur Fincancı had stated that "it is an obligation to carry out investigations in the areas where these allegations are made within the scope of the Geneva Convention and the Minnesota Convention, which prohibit the use of chemicals" and that "independent committees should carry out effective investigations". Fincancı, who was targeted after her statement, was detained on 26 October despite her request to testify, and arrested on 27 October and transferred to Ankara and sent to Sincak Women's Closed Prison. 582 lawyers objected to the detention decision and the court ruled that 'the measure was proportionate'. The first hearing of Fincancı's trial was held on 23 December and the second on 29 December. Fincancı was released from detention at the third hearing held today (11 January). (EVRENSEL DAILY)
Hakkı Özdal
Arif Koşar
Yusuf Karadaş