Yekta Uzunoglu

In 1976, he co-founded an illegal publishing house during the communist Czechoslovakia era with Prof. Dr. Pavel Martasek and Vladimir Korensky. Until 1979 they published many books on Kurds, a map of Kurdistan and Joyce Blau's works, who was a professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris.[2]

He has participated in editing of a Kurdish grammar book, translated parts of Bible and works of Karel Čapek into Kurdish and Kurdish poetry into Czech.[3] He has also cooperated with the Kurdish Institute of Paris, the Kurdish Institut of Bonn and the Czech Center of the International PEN Club.[4][5]

On 13. September 1994, Czech police detained Yekta Uzunoglu (subsequently the officer in charge, Josef Opava, received a fourteen-year sentence as a member of the infamous "Berdych's gang"); his unlawful detention (Czech law allowed maximum 24 hours of detention) lasted nearly 72 hours without charges being laid. Afterwards, according to press statement from police officer Jiří Gregor, accusations were made of "illegal arms and drugs trading" and Uzunoglu was remanded into custody.[7][8]

One month later, the previous charges were dropped, but more charges were brought of "preparing of murders, unlawful possession of guns, multiple frauds and torture"; these accusations had been laid by "Göksel Otan", supposed Turkish citizen living in the Czech Republic.[9]

The case was litigated until 10 April 1995, when all accusations were proven to be false, except a count of torture. Purportedly Uzunoglu, with the help of other detainees, had tortured Göksel Otan on 9 September and then two other people (one of them his own cousin), on the date he was detained. At this time, according to court files, one of the accused persons (Uzunoglu's nephew) had been already in custody for several hours. However, even this version of the lawsuit was not accepted by the responsible court.[10]

Meanwhile, Uzunoglu's remand was prolonged and Uzunoglu endured unlawful mistreatment, as then minister of justice Jan Ruml later confessed.[11]

Later in 1996, Uzunoglu received the German citizenship, although still in custody. During the ensuing trial, it was shown that "Göksel Otan" was a false identity and that a false passport in that name had been used for at least 25 years. "Göksel" admitted in court that his true name is "Gurkan Gönen". According to Ministry of interior inquiry, Gönen has been a long-term informer of communist STB and after Velvet revolution worked as an informer for cpt. Horák, policeman leading the prosecution of Uzunoglu.[12]

A final version of the lawsuit, literally same as the one rejected in 1995, was filed on 18 January 2000. In January 2003, the charge moved to Turkey's jurisdiction, which subsequently returned it to the Czech court 9 months later. On 25 September 2003, the Czech court stopped prosecution of Uzunoglu for humanitarian reasons, but both the prosecutor and Uzunoglu would not accept this decision; the latter demanded to be cleared of all accusations.

On 3 March 2006, important figures of the Czech public life published an open letter called "Žalujeme" ("We accuse", similar to Émile Zola's "J'accuse ...!", which helped end the infamous Dreyfus affair in France 100 years before), namely Pavel Dostál, Táňa Fischerová, František Janouch, Karel Jech, Květa Jechová, Svatopluk Karásek, Jaroslav Kořán, Dana Němcová, Karel Schwarzenberg, Jiřina Šiklová, Věněk Šilhán, Libuše Šilhánová, Jaromír Štětina, Petruška Šustrová.

In April 2006, Yekta Uzunoglu was presented the František Kriegel prize for civic courage.[13]

In March 2007, Uzunoglu started an 11 days long hunger strike against his prolonged process, and many important public figures, including former president Václav Havel, joined him symbolically for one day. On 29 March 2007, Uzunoglu was sentenced to two years in prison, which he immediately appealed, describing it as "fashizoid" justice. Amnesty International declared their support of Uzunoglu.[14][15] On 31 July 2007, Prague's Court of appeals heard the appeal and finally dropped all charges.[16][17][18]

On April 28, 2017, Yekta Uzunoglu was arrested in Prague, but the next day he was released. According to Uzunoglu himself, the Turkish Embassy in Prague is behind the initiative of the police. The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic with its finding of 13 February 2018 issue: III. ÚS 1920/17 Judge-Rapporteur prof. JUDr. Jan Filip CSc. stated that Yekta Uzunoglu's arrest on 28 April 2017 was unconstitutional.[19][20] For more informations see press agency of Kurdistan Bakur[21][22][23][24]

Yekta alleges that the police charges against him were part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the Turkish government under Tansu Çiller and former communists including former Czechoslovak foreign minister Jaromin Johanes who now lives in Turkey.[25]

In 2015 upon the request of MEP Jaromir Štětina , Vice-Chair of European Parliament Security and Defence Committee, Yekta Uzunoğlu traveled with MEP Stetina to North Syria in order to investigate the situation of the war against the ISIS.[26][27] After their return from the travel Uzunoglu shared some photographs from their visit on his Twitter page which were the same photographs that MEP Stetina posted on his personal Twitter account and these photos can also be found on official EU Parliament's web page. In January 2019 Turkey has issued an arrest warrant for Dr. Uzunoglu due to these photographs on his Twitter page. In order to prevent delivery of Uzunoglu, who is also a german citizen, to Turkey; Amnesty International, Members of European Parliement, Kurdish PEN club and many Czech famous personalities warned the German and the Czech governments.[28][29][30]

Yekta Uzunoglu with Václav Have l- 2006

• Kurds in Turkey