Solidarity Action at Swiss Embassy - Free Erdogan and Dursun!

Five anarchists demonstrated their solidarity with Erdogan E. and Dursun Güner at the Swiss Embassy in Wellington (Aotearoa/New Zealand) this morning.

"This protest is part of a weekend of international solidarity actions for Erdogan and Dursun who have been sitting in prison for months now and are about to be extradited to Turkey where they will be tortured and sent to jail. It is abhorrent that the Swiss Authorities extradite refugees to Turkish prisons" said protest participant Peter Steiner.

"We are sending revolutionary greetings to Erdogan, Dursun and their supporters - the 'Alliance against Expulsion and Extradition to Turkey'."

Two cops were already outside the Embassy when we arrived. We took the lift to the 6th floor and after a bit of waiting the Swiss ambassador, Beat Nobs, was prepared to talk to us.

Erdogan E., a political refugee from Turkey, has been in prison in Switzerland since February 2006. Erdogan who has lived in Switzerland for the past 9 years participated in the revolutionary struggle in Turkey. The Turkish authorities now want him extradited because they claim he killed a police man. Erdogan denies the accusation and all the testimonies were demonstrably obtained using torture. Despite this, the Swiss Federal Judiciary Office still recommends his expulsion to Turkey, a violation of the anti-torture convention.

Dursun Güner is an asylum seeker in Switzerland who was arrested when crossing the border to Germany in May 2006. Since then he has been sitting in jail in Lörrach. He is about to be extradited too.

Nobs, in a very diplomatic manner, said that he would be writing to the Swiss Authorities and inform them about our protest.

"The state racism in Switzerland is disgusting. We support the growing revolutionary resistance against anti-immigrant legislations in Switzerland. We will be back if Erdogan and Dursun will be extradited and look into organising a Swiss passport burning session at the embassy" said Peter Steiner.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On How Climate Change Threatens Cricket‘s Future

Well that didn’t last long, did it? Mere days after taking on what he called the “awesome responsibility” of being Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon has started blaming everyone else and complaining that he's inherited “economic vandalism on an unprecedented scale” - which is how most of us would describe his own coalition agreements, 100-Day Plan, and backdated $3 billion handout to landlords... More