Tahir Elçi Service Building of Diyarbakır Bar Association was opened with a ceremony

The new service building of Diyarbakır Bar Association was opened with a ceremony.

President of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations Erinç Sağkan, NEW Party Diyarbakır Deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, president of the regional bar associations and many guests attended the opening ceremony of the service building, which was named after former Diyarbakır Bar Association President Tahir Elçi, who was shot and killed during an armed conflict between security forces and PKK terrorists while making a press statement in Sur district on November 28, 2015.

Speaking at the opening program, Diyarbakır Bar Association President Abdulkadir Güleç said that they are together today not only to open the doors of a new building, but actually to start a new venue of a 100-year-old legal struggle.

Stating that Diyarbakır Bar Association is one of the well-established and strong bar associations in Türkiye, Güleç said, "During its 100-year history, Diyarbakır Bar Association has not only been a professional organization of lawyers. It has been the strong voice of the rule of law, the right to defense, human rights and the search for justice. At the point we have reached today, Diyarbakır Bar Association has grown. The number of our colleagues has increased. Our areas of activity have expanded."

“THIS DOOR WILL BE A DOOR OPENING TO JUSTICE”

Stating that they continue to defend the rule of law, independence of the judiciary and fundamental rights and freedoms, while struggling with the problems of their profession, Güleç said, "But now all these works had to be carried out in more qualified, more contemporary and more convenient physical conditions. A service building we are opening today is exactly the result of such a need. Today, we are not actually opening just a service building. Therefore, this door we open today is not just a matter of opening a door. This door will be a door opening to justice. This door will be a door opening to the rule of law. I believe this "The building will make significant contributions to the work of Diyarbakır Bar Association in the coming years and to our bar association's tradition of struggle and profession," he said.

“WE KNOW THAT PRESIDENT TAHIR DEDICATED HIS LIFE TO FIGHTING IMPUNITY”

President of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, Erinç Sağkan, stated that naming the building after Tahir Elçi was a very precious moment for him and said, "As a lawyer who attended Tahir Elçi's funeral here years ago and shouldered that coffin, I would like to express that I am very honored and happy to open a service building that keeps his name alive and integrates with his name."

Sağkan stated that Tahir Elçi devoted his life to the fight against impunity and that he was one of the leading soldiers of the struggle for human rights and added:

"It is valuable to give names to buildings and conference halls, but what is even more valuable is to keep the struggle of those names alive and to have the institutional capacity to continue it. While we are opening this building, we also have the peace of knowing that this building will raise lawyers who will courageously defend human rights in 81 provinces of Türkiye.

The peace I feel in the institutional sense comes from exactly here. After I take office, I want to meet with our esteemed president many times about this issue. We held corporate meetings. It made us feel very clearly how urgent the need was. He made demands, was persistent, identified locations, came with suggestions, worked hard, and always kept the need to provide a service building for our bar clearly on the agenda of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations. As a result, today, together, we brought the work to our bar association and the city of Diyarbakır."

40TH ANNIVERSARY PLAQUE TO SEZGİN TANRIKULU

After the speeches, plaques were given to the lawyers who entered their 40th and 50th years in the profession.

NEW Party Diyarbakır Deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, who was among the names given a plaque on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his membership in the Diyarbakır Bar Association, talked about his difficult days during his internship at the Diyarbakır Bar Association.

Stating that he met the Diyarbakır Bar Association during a very difficult time, Tanrıkulu said:

"Immediately after September 12, on September 16, I enrolled in Istanbul University Faculty of Law. My father was in custody, we graduated from the university, we came and started our internship here. The whole weight of September 12, the whole weight of the coup was continuing in the entire environment of Diyarbakır. There was a very heavy human rights environment and serious human rights violations in the Diyarbakır prison right next to it. Since I was the only intern, I was also attending the board meetings of the Diyarbakır Bar Association.

There, I learned what the Diyarbakır Bar Association is and how to fight for rights and law during the coup period, in an intern environment. "After the internship, I tried to read the history of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, I tried to read the decision, I tried to listen to those who were presidents of the bar association, and I got information from our colleagues."