Reminder : jour­nal­ist and artist Zehra Doğan has been sen­tenced to 2 years and 9 months in jail. She is impris­onned in Diyarbakir since June 12th. She had pre­vi­ous­ly spent 141 days of incar­cer­a­tion in Mardin, up until Decem­ber 9th 2016.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty did not fail to answer the call, but Zehra could not escape Turkey’s open air prison before being arrest­ed again in June. Her works, how­ev­er, have escaped the prison universe.

Her dear­est wish is that they be exhib­it­ed, then sold at auc­tion to ben­e­fit the fam­i­lies vic­tim­ized by the exac­tions in Kur­dis­tan and plunged into pre­car­i­ous­ness fol­low­ing the jail­ing of their fam­i­ly mem­bers, or their fir­ing in the ongo­ing purges hap­pen­ing under the state of emergency.

Her wish will be grant­ed in 2017/2018. Kedis­tan has made that com­mit­ment to Zehra.

Dur­ing the cin­e­ma week run­ning in Douarnenez from August 18 to 26, a selec­tion of 22 of her works will be shown at the “Miettes de Baleine” gallery, pri­or to a full exhi­bi­tion of some six­ty works that will tour towns in France and else­where in Europe.

These recent and pre­vi­ous­ly uncir­cu­lat­ed works done in « clan­des­tin­i­ty » will be added to those she cre­at­ed in jail in 2016.

Let’s pause for a moment for a look at those months she spent await­ing sen­tenc­ing in 2016, a moment that pro­duced a strong act of resis­tance in Mardin’s prison for women.

This resis­tance start­ed from the sim­ple obser­va­tion that the news­pa­per Özgür Gün­dem had been for­bid­den and shut down.

Since the sources for free information have dried up, let’s re-create them ourselves »

This ini­ti­at­ed resis­tance orga­nized by the women inside the jail who pro­duced two hand­made edi­tions on brown wrap­ping paper which cir­cu­lat­ed under the blan­ket. A shiv­er runs through you when you hold in your hands what is now a his­tor­i­cal « doc­u­ment » tes­ti­fy­ing to the tenac­i­ty of Kur­dish resis­tance, to the inven­tiv­i­ty, orga­ni­za­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty among the pris­on­ers, as well as to the poli­ti­za­tion in jails hold­ing so many activists.

In fac­sim­i­le form, these doc­u­ments will be avail­able in the fall. Along with trans­la­tions of arti­cles, they will be includ­ed in the exhibition’s com­pan­ion book, avail­able in Douarnenez in August, and in book­stores in October.

Zehra Doğan

*
A book

The book con­tains a num­ber of Zehra Doğan’s texts, and more than 60 of her pic­to­r­i­al works, paint­ings and draw­ings. A way for Zehra to thumb her nose from jail at those who want to shat­ter what she is. A stag­ing point, at age 28, in her way of resist­ing both polit­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly. “Les yeux grands ouverts“ (Eyes Wide Open) swarms with life.

We will nev­er say it enough, some indi­vid­ual fig­ures sym­bol­ize entire strug­gles. Zehra Doğan is one of them. Her strug­gle in favor of women led to a jour­nal­ism award for her reportage on the Yezi­di women mar­tyrised by ISIS, after which she spent weeks in the besieged towns under cur­few, so as to tes­ti­fy both by her writ­ing and her draw­ings on the mur­ders com­mit­ted by the Turk­ish regime’s repres­sive forces. That time, her reward was a jail sen­tence for her « apol­o­gy of terrorism ».

Zehra is any­thing but an “aris­to­crat”. At the age of 25, when she found­ed with oth­ers the first entire­ly female Turk­ish press agency, she was not invit­ed into the inner sanc­tums, so com­mon is it for Kur­dish jour­nal­ists to go unno­ticed too, because they are Kurds. With its all per­va­sive nation­al­ism, even in adver­si­ty, that’s how it goes in Turkey.

There­fore, sup­port­ing Zehra Doğan means being at the core of the top­ic, not just sup­port­ing anoth­er call to « free­dom of expression ».

Sup­port­ing Zehra is also a tremen­dous way to « pro­tect » her  and to help her and her near ones resist and pre­pare for the future.

Mak­ing her known, fos­ter­ing her, writ­ing to her, help in the real­iza­tion of her aid project for the fam­i­lies in dis­tress she met, charg­ing us with the task of act­ing in proxy by rais­ing her image at every occa­sion of a demon­stra­tion in front of a con­sulate or embassy, when that is in the scope of our pos­si­bil­i­ties, of your possibilities.

Sup­port­ing Zehra Doğan is giv­ing con­crete expres­sion to the denun­ci­a­tion of nation­al­ism and the detes­ta­tion of a regime in which democ­ra­cy and jus­tice have dis­ap­peared, by putting into the lime­light a fig­ure that has lost none of her joy nor any of the nec­es­sary spark for an upcom­ing Newroz.

So, on to your « shares » on social media plat­forms for your friends, your activist cir­cles or oth­er asso­ci­a­tions… And on to your own projects too… Do not hes­i­tate to make use of Kedis­tan in that regard, that’s what our infor­ma­tion kits are for…

2017/18 can and must make calls for lib­er­a­tion res­onate and, through them, make all the oth­ers heard also.

Zehra Dogan


French Zehra Doğan, un livre, une expo­si­tion, vos soutiens…

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