Letters from prisons

Letters from prisons

We publish extracts of letters the prisoners on hunger strike are sending to daily Kurdish paper Özgür Gündem.

Bedriye Yorgun / SES Secretary General, Sincan Women’s Prison

Who exactly are these women rebels who are using their bodies, the only power left to them in the midst of walls, seeking justice, freedom and a dignified life ? Zeynep, Emine Berçem, Azize, Adile, Mehtap, Yaðmur, Güler, Naime, Ayþe, Berivan, Songül, Nilüfer. These aren’t just names. Each of this woman is a soldier of peace, they have a life and a story.

One of this women is Zeynep Kýyar who was born during the war and was forced to collect the thorn a part bodies of her mother’s and grandmother’s at the age of nine. The classes of the school in their besieged village became a venue for the hegemony of the system’s ideology and the assimilation of their language, while their shoal garden became a place where guerrilla bodies were tortured, villagers were tortured in what was a “concentration camp”.

Aysel DOÐAN / Elbistan E Type Prison

I went to the mountain, or as they say now, I lived on plain fields. Now I am in prison and on an hunger strike. If Mr. Öcalan is not provided with proper conditions of health, freedom and safety and if my existence, language and rights are not secured…

I first knew prison soon after the military coup in 1980. Then I was one of the members of the peace group that came to Turkey following Mr. Öcalan’s call in 1989 and 1999. I spent 10 years in prison. Two years after my release, I once again found myself here. Those who took part in my first trial are now acting as figurants at a show trial.

Agit Özbay / Çankýrý Prison

[...] As a young person from Botan who has been living under the dirty hands of the system, I deny all fabricated news on the media and the useless discourses of government authorities for the sake of all my values and I say that “We shall raise the fire of resistance towards freedom which will be the victory of our struggle [...]