International delegation to attend trial of Ayse Berktay (Hacimirzaoglu) in Turkey During the past three years, the Turkish state has imprisoned some 8000 citizens under the guise of fighting terrorism. In a wave of detentions known as the “KCK operations,” it has targeted activists, academics, journalists, lawyers, students, elected officials, translators and publishers on account of their democratic activities in support of the rights demanded by Kurdish citizens in Turkey. In particular, numerous members and supporters of the BDP (Peace and Democracy Party)—which has 36 elected representatives in the Turkish Parliament—have been criminalized and imprisoned on the pretext that they are alleged members of the KCK (Union of Communities in Kurdistan), a group which the Turkish state claims to be the urban branch of an armed organization known as the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Professor Busra Ersanli is the best known of those who were thus imprisoned in 2011, together wi...