Last March two traffic cops in Jönköping made Idris Demir and a friend return with them to their home after Demir failed to provide the police with identification. Once there, Demir, faced with the threat of deportation after his two asylum appeals had been turned down by the government, ran out of the apartment. He got only halfway down the stairs before one of the cops shot him in the back.

"Everyone knows that the policeman who was cleared by the court is guilty, and that he has killed a defenseless, innocent Kurdish refugee," Keya Izol told the rally. Izol is the president of the Kurdish National League, which consists of 38 Kurdish organizations. "If you are guilty you must be punished, whether you are a policeman or another citizen. We demand that Sweden and its government, authorities, and voluntary organizations respond to this, and demand a fair trial of Idris Demir's killer."

Young Socialists leader Claudio Burgos also addressed the rally. "It is no coincidence that the cop was freed in the midst of a war campaign being carried out at home by the Swedish rulers, who are also backing the imperialist war against Afghanistan," he said. "This is what Swedish imperialism has to offer working people in the future--more cop brutality, more racism, and more attacks on democratic rights." Burgos pointed to the protests against police brutality in New York City and Cincinnati in the United States as examples to be followed by other working people.

Idris Demir's brother and two sisters drove from Jönköping to take part in the rally. The protest received national coverage on TV4 News. Commenting on the trial, Süleyman Demir, Idris Demir's brother, told the reporter, "The people who made the decision, the officials who were involved, seemed to have made up their mind to free him [the cop] from the first moment on." Demir added, "We had heard that here in Sweden you die when God says so. Now I feel regret, and I wish I had never come here."

On October 30, the last day of the trial, an investigator from the State Technical Criminology Laboratory told the newspaper Jönköpingposten that "the clothes [worn by Idris Demir] were not handled as material evidence. Because of this, it is not possible to determine the exact shooting distance by measuring gunpowder stains on the shirt."

This made possible a defense based upon the false premise that the cop shot Idris Demir at close range in self-defense after being attacked with a knife.

Replying to these charges, Süleyman Demir said, "Isn't it obvious that he knew that if he used a knife against the police it would have been impossible for him to stay in this country? In court, the police were in agreement, they were just laughing. The cop himself went abroad on vacation before the trial was finished."

The legal representative of the Demir family, Thomas Nilsson, told Jönköp ingposten that the police officer "has killed Idris Demir with a shot in the back. There is nothing that can change this fact, although a great deal of energy has been put into the case to obscure it."

Describing the many letters of protest sent to the Jönköping Courthouse the day after the cop was freed, Seyran Öncü, Idris Demir's sister, said, "A lot of people sent faxes and wrote letters to the media. The media said they thought Idris's relatives had done it, but those who wrote the letters are people we don't know."

One of Sweden's two main evening newspapers, Expressen, published an article by Süleyman Demir November 15, entitled "Why did the police shoot my little brother?" In the article, Demir writes: "A couple of months after Idris's death I was granted asylum by the Swedish state. I am not sure if I can live with that kind of comfort. I wish that we were sitting in a Turkish prison, that we had never looked for shelter in Sweden." Demir continues: "I am talking of powerful men, the guardians of justice, who protect each other, lie, falsify and construct to cover up a murder. I am not talking about Swedish people. They have been at our house, had tea with us, tried to comfort us and cried with us."

In the article, Demir reports that the police repeatedly threatened Idris Demir's friend who witnessed the shooting. On November 16 the friend told Jönköpingsposten that when he called an ambulance one day to get medical attention for his pregnant wife, a gang of cops showed up after an hour and a half with the ambulance. "A police officer pulled out his gun and put the barrel to the side of my head to frighten me," he said.

Seyran Öncü told the Militant about a teacher in her Swedish-for-immigrants class, who is also a court official at the Jönköping Courthouse. "When I was leaving class to go to court one of the days of the trial, she told me that I couldn't go, and that this Swedish class costs the state money. After that, I quit going to that class," she said. This incident was printed in Jönköpingsposten November 17.

"If we sit around and do nothing, this will happen to someone else. Either a Swedish person, or a person from another country," said Süleyman Demir.

Chief Prosecutor Ulf Barck Holst has until mid-December to appeal the judgement and request a new trial of the cop who killed Idris Demir. The Demir family has said that if there is no new trial, they will turn to the European Union Court of Human Rights.

Daniel Ahl is a member of the Industrial Union in Stockholm, Sweden.  
 
 
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