------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 15, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
TURKISH ACTIVISTS ARRESTED IN EUROPE
By John Catalinotto
The police forces of Turkey, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece and Bel gium struck out April 1 and 2 against political activists. Sixty- three people were arrested, 40 of them in Turkey, under the cover of "anti-terrorism." (Reuters, April 2)
The announced target of this new wave of state repression is accused members of, or sympathizers with, the Turkish revolutionary organization Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C). This working- class, revolutionary group is known for its resolute struggle against the Turkish military regime and especially in the past few years for its struggle within Turkish prisons. The DHKP-C has been forced to operate illegally in Turkey and for the last two years it has been banned by the European Union.
Turkey is a NATO member. Its rulers want to join the EU, so Turkey now has an elected parliamentary government. But the real power still lies with the Turkish army, which in turn is dependent on its close ties to U.S. and German imperialism. The Turkish state and fascist-like death squads linked to the state have kept up a steady attack on workers' organizations during this entire period. The army has also committed mass murder against the Kurdish population.
The DHKP-C's members have played a leading role in a prison hunger strike that has gone on since 2000. Its aim is to prevent the introduction of maximum-security lockups that isolate individual political prisoners in an attempt to break them, as is done in the United States.
DHKP-C members have shown great courage and self-sacrifice. Some 60 of them have died during the hunger strike. Many more have been injured and murdered by the Turkish guards and military. The organization has also struggled against NATO and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
While the DHKP-C is not pacifist, in Europe it has carried out only political activity. The group has never been identified with such acts as the bombing of a synagogue in Istanbul or the bombing of commuter trains in Madrid. Not even the police can seriously make such accusations. It is apparent, though, that the EU police apparatus has misused the fear created by these attacks to try to break a revolutionary workers' organization.
Along with Turkish immigrants, three Italian members of the Anti- Imperialist Camp (CAI) were arrested in Perugia, Italy. The Italian capitalist media has constantly attacked the CAI in recent months because that group has taken an explicit public position supporting the armed Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led occupation of that country. The big-business media has been trying to discredit the idea of solidarity with the resistance and even support for the immediate withdrawal of Italian and U.S. forces from Iraq, identifying these positions with "terrorism." The media campaign and the arrests are meant to intimidate the massive anti-war movement in Italy, whose ranks are moving toward an ever more anti-imperialist position.
Meanwhile, in Greece, the teachers, public workers and other unions have made statements opposing arbitrary arrests of DHKP-C sympathizers in that country.
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