A specially authorized Istanbul court ruled yesterday to release prominent publisher and human rights activist Ragıp Zarakolu and 14 others who had been arrested in connection with the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) trials.
The release sparked bittersweet joy for the publisher’s son, who expressed concern at other family members who remain behind bars. “Only 50 percent of our job is done, because my brother, Deniz Zarakolu, has yet to be released. They depicted my father and my brother as terrorists. Now they are releasing one of them, while keeping the other one in [jail]. What can I say?” Ragıp Zarakolu’s son Sinan Zarakolu told Hürriyet Daily News.
The court cited a number of reasons for its decision to release the suspects, including the length of time they had already been incarcerated, the state of the evidence and the probability of the qualification of the offense being subject to change.
