Скачать или смотреть Turkish Bar Association reacts to ’lawyers being viewed as potential suspects’

The Turkish Bar Association (TBB) released a statement on Friday in response to the introduction of searches conducted on lawyers at courthouse entrances after a deadly attack by terrorists disguised as lawyers took place on Tuesday, saying that lawyers cannot be viewed as potential criminal suspects.
The TTB statement said that lawyers should not be blamed for the security weakness in courthouses. "Courthouses are lawyers' workplaces. Hence, we demand tighter security, too. However, lawyers cannot be subjected to processes that are not imposed on judges and prosecutors. Discrediting the reputation of this profession and practices that suppress and intimidate lawyers are unacceptable. The TBB will apply to the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors [HSYK] and the Ministry of Justice on the issue. We previously shared with the public our grief over the terrible incident that took place in the İstanbul Courthouse. We condemn the fact that lawyers are being targeted right after the incident despite the fact that they have no connection with the issue. We see this practice as aimed at stopping people from seeing lawyers as credible."
On Friday, a group of lawyers protested the new practice at the entrance to the İstanbul Courthouse, which saw a bloody terror attack on Tuesday. The riot police pushed the group of lawyers, who refused to be searched, away from the entrance using their shields.
The terrorist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) announced midday on Tuesday that it had taken Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage in his office at the İstanbul Courthouse. Two gunmen and the prosecutor died after a shootout between the hostage-takers and police. Kiraz had been leading an investigation into the death last March of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who died nine months after going into a coma resulting from a head wound sustained from a police tear gas canister during the nationwide anti-government protests in June 2013.