CHP to hold protest in Silivri on trial day

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

CHP members will be in front of the Silivri Prison and Courthouse on Dec 13.

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) sent a circular to the party’s provincial and town organizations on Dec. 5, calling on party members to attend the upcoming trial of the ongoing Ergenekon coup case next week.

The main opposition party has no interest in remaining silent in the face of “inquisition-style revenge at the Silivri concentration camps,” said the circular, which was signed by CHP deputy chairs Adnan Keskin and Bülent Tezcan.

The trial is being held in Istanbul’s Silivri district. “We will not remain silent to this process in which there is no sense of justice and in which the law is overstepped. We will not remain aloof to inquisition-style revenge at the Silivri concentration camps. That’s why we are inviting all of our citizens to the trial in Silivri at 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 13, 2012,” the circular said, urging the party’s provincial and town organizations to convince their constituents to attend the hearing.

Ergenekon is an alleged ultranationalist gang accused of plotting to overthrow the government by fomenting chaos in society. Two arrested CHP deputies, Mustafa Balbay and Mehmet Haberal, are among the defendants in the controversial case.

Meanwhile, Veli Ağbaba, spokesperson for CHP’s Prisons Commission, said a 26-member CHP delegation will today visit Balbay and Haberal in Silivri. The delegation will also visit Engin Alan, a retired general and a deputy from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who was sentenced in September to 18 years in prison in the “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer) case and who is serving this sentence at Silivri Prison.

Visiting arrested deputies from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) at a later date is also on the agenda of the CHP delegation, Ağbaba said.