Police Operation Against Turkish Activists in Germany

December 17, 2007. A World to Win News Service. On December 5, police carried out raids against homes and offices in cities in northern, southern and western Germany. According to the Associated Press, their goal was to obtain “evidence of the personnel and organizational structure of the TKP/ML foreign terrorist organization and its terrorist activity, federal prosecutors said in a statement.” Following is the full text of a press release by the European Coordination of the International League for People’s Struggle.

With the advancement of imperialist aggression the attacks towards those forces that actively participate in the national and social liberation struggle and anti-imperialist struggle have accelerated. Under the so-called “anti-terror” concept or “internal security precaution” many homes, offices and associations are being raided, without any plausible explanation, activists are being arrested and in some countries even threatened, killed and tortured. This wave of repression has also developed in Europe.

A new example for this is the 5th of December 2007; in the early morning hours in about eight cities in Germany a broad operation was held. The operation was carried out by about 145 policemen. The decision of the operation was given by the Highest Court in Karlsruhe. The raid was done against two associations and 10 apartments. Some of these persons are well known left-democrat members of the ATIF association (of Turkish workers abroad).

The accusation against all of them is that they are members of the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist Leninist (TKP/ML). It is mentioned in the search warrant that the TKP/ML is not prohibited in Germany. The houses were searched for hours to find “suspicious” objects and “relevant” documents, after taking all the activists to the police station for taking fingerprints they were released.

The media stream has also written about this and did their contribution in concern of misinformation. They wrote “operation against TKP/ML militants,” or “operation in terrorist cell,” etc., in the news, the activists were shown as terrorists and members of the organization. This shows that the bourgeois media is doing nothing else than serving the purpose of the ruling classes. In Germany progressive and left wing organizations and their activists and also migrant associations who are struggling internationally against worldwide repression or that stand against all kinds of human rights violations are being considered as “very dangerous.”

We are calling upon the progressive and democratic public and also intellectuals to take a stand against this injustice and illegitimate measure of the German state against the democratic, progressive movement. This attack against progressive persons is a violation of the principal constitutional right of freedom of speech and the right of organizing.

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