Threat against workers, toilers, the oppressed, the Kurdish people, and friends of Palestine in the person of the revolutionary attorney Şiar Rişvanoğlu! Solidarity with Şiar Rişvanoğlu!

A member of the Revolutionary Workers Party in Turkey (DIP), Şiar Rişvanoğlu has been threatened by fascist militias with a message left on his car. This is the second occasion after 2020 that Rişvanoğlu, once the municipal candidate of a coalition of socialist and Kurdish forces in his city, Adana, and a relentless fighter of anti-imperialist and socialist causes, both as a lawyer and militant, faces threats against his life. The following text is fundamentally based on the communiqué in Turkish published by the DIP’s Central Committee immediately after this threat.

Our comrade attorney at law Şiar Rişvanoğlu, member of the Revolutionary Workers Party, always at the forefront of political trials defending revolutionaries, the Kurds, women, workers, and the oppressed, was the target of a threat once again several days ago (October 16th) through a message that was left on his car. Back in 2020, his attorney office’s windows were smashed, and the perpetrators - left a threat note inside. This time, our comrade’s car was vandalized after the General Assembly of the Adana Bar Association, and a threat message, signed by the so-called “Turkish Vengeance Brigade”, was left on his car’s window. We stand with our comrade against this cowardly and contemptible menace that is the hallmark of fascism in Turkey!

This threat against our comrade came several days after his speech in the General Assembly of the Adana Bar Association, which included a statement of solidarity with all the workers in resistance- and first and foremost with the Polonez meat factory workers in Istanbul, who have been fighting for more than three months the brazen violation of their right to unionize (146 workers have been laid off by management), peasants protesting poverty, the people of Palestine undergoing Zionist genocide, and the oppressed Kurdish people. Our comrade introduced a resolution to the General Assembly to take a stance on shutting down İncirlik and Kürecik military bases and halting oil transport from Turkey to Israel. The fascists proved themselves once again to be an anti-worker apparatus that does the dirty work for the bosses with the threatening sentence, “Those Polonez workers and their ilk whom you defend won’t come to save you.” They also proved themselves once again to be hitmen for Zionism and imperialism and warriors of colonial oppression in Turkey with sentences such as “You won’t be able to camouflage yourself with those shows, holding up Palestinian flags, and those lofty words about imperialism”. Further, this attack demonstrates once again that the bourgeoisie’s pseudo-overture, of very recent vintage, towards the Kurdish movement is part of an attempt to grab crumbs from the new regional order that imperialism and Zionism are trying to shape, and that the fascists, who are de facto coalition partners in the government, will not end their attacks on the Kurdish people and their allies.

From a very young age onwards, and as a lawyer after a certain point, our comrade Şiar Rişvanoğlu has been standing with the working class and the oppressed of this country, and has been struggling to defeat the bourgeoisie and their apparatchiks, the fascists. At one point, he caused the state many a restless night by engaging in an electoral campaign that would unite the indignation of the workers and toilers and the dynamism of the Kurdish people in Adana, an industrial hub in the southeast of the country and one of the largest cities of the country. He has never bowed down to threats or stepped back from his struggle.

We, the Revolutionary Workers Party, stand with our comrade. These lowly threats only show whose peace and tranquility our struggle disturbs. These threats have not to this day led us or Şiar Rişvanoğlu to be terrorized, and they shall not hereafter either. We invite our international comrades and friends defending the unity of workers and the fraternity of peoples, whose hearts beat with the Palestinian people against imperialism and Zionism, and who struggle for a world in which women and all oppressed shall live in equality and freedom to solidarize with our comrade Şiar Rişvanoğlu!

Down with fascism!

Down with Erdoğan’s despotism, long live freedom!

Long live the unity of workers and the fraternity of peoples!

Revolutionary Workers Party in Turkey (DIP)

October 17, 2024