Immediate release of the prisoners of ATIK and stop of all trials!

On 15 April 2015 a cross-border operation against ATIK (Confederation of workers from Turkey in Europe), the women's organization Yeni Kadin and the youth organization YDG, initiated by the German government and prepared at long hand, was carried out by special police units.

On the initiative of the German authorities 3 activists were arrested in Greece and in France and Switzerland one each. They shall be extradited to Germany and put on trial at  special courts. Many of those arrested are entitled to political asylum and had been imprisoned in Turkey for long times and were severely tortured there. Their state of health is bad. Still they are kept in solitary confinement by German security services.

The reactionary paragraphs 129a and § 129b of the German penal code serve as basis for the police assaults and the arrests according to which the membership in a so-called foreign “terrorist” association is prosecutable which is linked with far-reaching restrictions of bourgeois democratic rights and liberties. ATIK is called a cover organization of the TKP/ML(Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninists). These reactionary and counterrevolutionary paragraphs must be fundamentally rejected. Neither is TKP/ML banned in Germany, nor does it figure on the reactionary so-called anti-”terror”-list of the EU. The reactionary measures themselves violate the bourgeois European and international law.

In the arrest warrants the TKP/ML is called a “terrorist association”, because it is supposed to be a Marxist-Leninist party practicing democratic centralism and wants to organize a democratic people's revolution with the aim of socialism/communism. 

The procedure is explicitly directed against the close cooperation of revolutionary forces from Turkey – TKP/ML, MLKP and MKP – with the PKK and the Kurdish liberation struggle. With the people's defense units and the women's defense units (YPG/YPJ) liberation fighters connected with TKP/ML defended Kobanê against and liberated it from the attacks of the fascist ISIS gangs and contributed to bringing the Yazidies in South Kurdistan to safety. Along the same lines, German security forces are currently assessing whether such a proceeding shall also be initiated against MLKP.

Organizations fighting against fascists and imperialists are being called terrorists and persecuted by European governments. This course of action of the European governments is identical to the interests and actions of the Erdogan government.

Germany is the only EU country practicing such reactionary measures like the PKK ban. It is based on the ban of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1956, valid until today, which directly targets revolutionary parties like the ICOR member MLPD.

The bans have never been accepted – the liberation struggle against imperialism is no crime, but justified.

It concerns all democratic, antifascist and revolutionary minded people, if forces are arrested and criminalized which are at the forefront of the liberation struggle against the fascist gangs of ISIS, and the liberation struggle in Rojava and Kobanê is placed under “suspicion of terrorism”.

In Greece, France, Switzerland and Germany a broad resistance is developing against these repressive actions. Because of protests a Greek court decided that the ATIK activists arrested in Greece must be released. An important success of the solidarity!

• Immediate release of the ATIK prisoners and termination of the proceedings!
• Abolition of the PKK ban! Abolition the legislation criminalizing Turkish revolutionary organizations!  Removal of the PKK and other revolutionary anti-imperialist organizations from the so-called „anti-terror lists“!
• Don't give anti-communism a chance! Fight the criminalization of Marxism-Leninism! For the preservation and extension of democratic rights and liberties!
• Long live proletarian internationalism!
• Workers of all countries, unite! Workers of all countries and oppressed peoples, unite!

1. MMLPL   Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Line
2. PPSR WATAD   Parti Patriote Socialiste Révolutionnaire WATAD (Patriotic Socialist Revolutionary Party WATAD), Tunisia
3. MLOA   Marxist-Leninist Organization of Afghanistan
4. CPB   Communist Party of Bangladesh
5. CPI (ML) Red Star   Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Star
6. PCC CPI (ML)   Provisional Central Committee Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
7. Ranjbaran   Hezb-e Ranjbaran-e Iran (Proletarian Party of Iran)
8. CPN (Unified)   Communist Party of Nepal (Unified)
9. NDMLP   New-Democratic Marxist-Leninist Party, Sri Lanka

10. БКП   Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

11. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

12. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

13. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

14. BP (NK-T)   Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

15. RMP   Российская маоистская партия (Rossijskaya maoistskaya partiya) (Russian Maoist Party)

16. VZDOR   VZDOR - strana práce (Resistance - labour party), Slovakia

17. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

18. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

19. PR   Partija Rada (Party of Labor), Yugoslavia (ex)

20. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

21. PC/ML   Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) de Panamá (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Panama)

22. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

23. PML del Perú   Partido Marxista Leninista del Perú (Marxist-Leninist Party of Peru)

24. PPP   Partido Proletario del Perú (Proletarian Party of Peru)

signed after the release date

25. NCP (Mashal) Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

26. KSC-CSSP Komunisticka Strana Cheskoslovenska – Cheskoslovenska Strana Prace (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia – Czechoslovakian Workers Party), Czech Republic

27. KSRD Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija; Ukraina (Coordination Council of the Working-class Movement of Ukraine)

Additional Signatories (Non-ICOR):

Trotz alledem!, Germany

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