Adil Demirci

Adil Demirci holds Turkish and German citizenship.[1] He worked in Turkey as a journalist and translator, among others for the news agency ETHA.[1]

Today he works for the International Confederation (Internationaler Bund, IB) as a social worker and is a member of the works council as well as a longtime trade unionist with ver.di.

Demirci was arrested by a Turkish special forces unit in April 2018 while on a family holiday. After four months, Demirci received the indictment. Until then, Demirci, who was imprisoned in prison, did not know what he was accused of.[1]

A Turkish prosecutor accuses him of being a member of the Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti (MLKP). The Turkish state classifies the party as a terrorist organization. He is also said to have attended funerals for members of the MLCP from 2013 to 2016 and was present at "unauthorized demonstrations with Molotov cocktails" of the party. Demirci told the Kölner Stadtanzeiger that he had never been a member of this party and was not today. He had attended the funerals and a memorial service. He worked as a translator for the left-wing news agency ETHA and accompanied colleagues to the events of the MLKP that had fought against ISIS. Prosecutors accused him of having a megaphone in his hand at a funeral. Demirci also denied this.[2] Thousands of people took part in the approved events. Oliver-Meyer Rüth of German Tagesschau wrote: "According to Western conceptions of the rule of law, Demirci should not have been detained for one day."[3]

In February 2019, Demirci was released after ten months in Istanbul custody but was ordered by the Istanbul court not to leave Istanbul. In June 2019, the court lifted the travel blockade after Demirci's lawyer had repeatedly requested that the ban be lifted and his mother had recently died of cancer in Germany. After depositing a deposit of 20,000 Turkish lira (about 3,000 Euro), he was allowed to travel to Germany for the funeral.[4]

Die Zeit wrote in 2019, the "case Demirci is one of the most prominent remaining lawsuits against a German in Turkey."[1] In comparison to more prominent journalists, such as Deniz Yücel or the translator Meşale Tolu, his case was less well known in the German public.

The Bundestag members Heike Hänsel (The Left) and Rolf Mützenich (SPD) from Cologne accompanied the trial against Demirci and traveled as a process observer to Istanbul.

At an event in the town hall of Cologne, Mayor Henriette Reker honored Demirci for his "Services to Democracy" in August 2019. She can not "gauge how difficult it is to endure when you are wrongfully charged with a crime you did not commit," she said.[5]