Many of you answered the call of inter­na­tion­al asso­ci­a­tions for the defence of human rights, the defence of artists and jour­nal­ists, and of… Kedis­tan, to send post­cards to Zehra Doğan.

Beau­ti­ful ini­tia­tives such as “writ­ing work­shops for Zehra” have been orga­nized, dur­ing exhi­bi­tions or else­where. We can­not name them all here.

And since she can’t answer each one of them, the kedis are impro­vis­ing them­selves as mail carriers.


My dear friends,

I would like to address you as “friends” because since I was arrest­ed, you have nev­er left me alone. I’ve received let­ters and post­cards from you all the time. You con­stant­ly made me feel your pres­ence, in this nar­row place, with two floors of 20 square meters, con­tain­ing 32 peo­ple. It’s a thing beyond meta­physics. I can’t describe that yet. But, thanks to you, I am now even stronger.

You nev­er made me live lone­li­ness. And now I have hun­dreds of friends, whom I don’t know, whose names I can’t remem­ber. And this sit­u­a­tion has brought a new thought to my mind. To feel the warmth of peo­ple, is it nec­es­sary for them to be close to me? Or, to love them, is it manda­to­ry to see their faces or to know their names? All of this is not absolute­ly necessary.

If the uni­verse is a macro cos­mos; and if we are each a par­ti­cle of cos­mos, as Aris­to­tle said, com­ing from a whole, form­ing a whole, if we are all chang­ing parts, we are one. So I know, in a way, that you are me at the same time. And so you breathe for me too, the beau­ti­ful air, of which I am unfor­tu­nate­ly deprived. Our lives, our futures, our exis­tences are linked like a spi­ral to each oth­er. Maybe your objec­tion to my state of impris­on­ment, and that of oth­ers, is deter­mined by that?

In each of your let­ters, I can read your rejec­tion of all oth­er injus­tices as well. Know­ing that so many beau­ti­ful peo­ple exist in the world makes me and all the pris­on­ers hap­py. So when I get out some day, we’ll start chat­ting like we’ve known each oth­er for years.

Thank you for all the let­ters and post­cards you have writ­ten so far, and for the hun­dreds of post­cards you have sent me for my birth­day. It was the best birth­day of my life. I felt reborn from my ashes.

And I would like to clar­i­fy that, around here, per­haps because many chil­dren are born, birth­days are not cel­e­brat­ed much, and often, for­got­ten. I cut a birth­day cake, I think, only dur­ing my col­lege years, and still only some years… And it had giv­en me a feel­ing that a woman might feel when wear­ing an out­fit in which she is uncom­fort­able… That’s why I express that, for the first time, I could give mean­ing to this day, thanks to your let­ters that found me here, between the four walls. Thank you very much for that.

Lov­ing Zehra.

Note from the kedis :

Yes, def­i­nite­ly, when sol­i­dar­i­ty is dis­in­ter­est­ed but active, it is use­ful for some­thing, proof.

The next step would be to unite all the mul­ti­ple sup­ports that have emerged over the past two years to demand her release. It’s a bat­tle still not won, and the obsta­cles on the way are still numerous…

We encour­age you to con­tin­ue this sup­port. You will find ways to do so HERE.


Some pic­tures?

With the kind per­mis­sion of the orga­niz­er of this 4th writ­ing work­shop in Mar­tigues, in the South of France at the Café asso­ci­atif “les Ral­lumeurs d’E­toiles”.

Ini­ti­at­ed dur­ing this sup­port work­shop on May 24, a col­lec­tive real­iza­tion con­tin­ues today to gath­er sup­port around a cre­ative table and to be enriched with new messages.

The street-artist Kider has also caught the mark­ers for Zehra, and his mes­sage expos­es in big let­ters the word “ÖZGÜRLÜK” : freedom !

The real­iza­tion will be sent to Zehra in the com­ing days.

  • martigues zehra dogan

Zehra Doğan : “Mer­ci pour vos let­tres et cartes !” Cli­quer pour lire
Zehra Doğan : “Gra­cias por vues­tras car­tas y postales” Haga clic par leer

Translated by Lougar Raynmarth
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Zehra Doğan
Auteure, mem­bre d’hon­neur de Kedistan
Jour­nal­iste, artiste. Jour­nal­ist, artist. Gazete­ci, sanatçı.