Vamos Bien calls for international solidarity with Amedspor’s ultras group Barikat from all Antifa groups overall Europe. –
Turkey is getting through a political chaos, due to street wars happening in eastern Turkey. After peace process collapsed, government started a new phase of war in the whole country.
Now, we are facing with this new phase in the stadiums. Amedspor, a team from Diyarbekir (Amed is the Kurdish name of the city), played against Istanbul Basaksehir, a team backed by government. Even with the 3 division difference between two clubs, first game ended with a draw even with the 2 red cards of Amedspor. On 28th of January, the second leg of the match-up took place in Istanbul and we attended the game as Vamos Bien also with our friendly group Barikat from Amedspor (Barricade in Turkish).
Before the match, in addition to the traditional precautions, they asked supporters’ Identity numbers, they checked two times from shoes to deeps of your clothes. Inside of the stadium, there were riot-polices in everywhere included the away supporters’ watching areas. During the match, we were with special ‘sport bureau’ employees of police next to our seats. In the match, in addition to the great effort by the referee to stop amazing play by Amedspor, referees didn’t end the match until Basaksehir scored the second goal in the extra times to catch equality. After this score, two Basaksehir players came in front of Amedspor supporters and made a formal military salute to us. These salute was in purpose of tensing us up.
After the match, police made us waited inside of a narrow corridor and pushed us more and more. After waiting for a while, they allowed us to leave stadium one by one. We realized the reason behind that was to check the faces of fans and put us under arrest. Now, tens of our friends have taken into custody. Surprisingly, they are not in the sport bureau of police, but counter-terror branch. Against all rights according to the law, the members of Barikat has been faced with violence by the police. They have been charged with “traitor to the state, membership of terorist organisations”. Members of Barikat has always been sensitive about one fact: Supporting only football team Amedspor, no direct slogans that can be used for provocation.
This shows us the pressure of police will increase against us who follows hopes in peace in the country. We know that the police and the government were offended by the chant we sang during the game; “If kids weren’t be dying, they could come to games!”
Freedom for Barikat members! Freedom for Ultras!
– Vamos Bien – Fenerbahçe Ultras, Istanbul