Bar­baros Şansal who describes him­self as a tai­lor’s appren­tice is one of the most noto­ri­ous pro­test­ers in Turkey… Fol­low­ing his post­ing of an iron­i­cal video on social medias, he was the vic­tim of an orga­nized attempt at a lynch­ing in Atatürk Air­port (Istan­bul). The mat­ter has been sub­mit­ted to the courts. Although he should not have spent so much as a sin­gle day in jail, he was incar­cer­at­ed nonethe­less. He spent 56 days in a cell at Silivri prison in Istanbul.

Bar­baros puts him­self to the fore in every demon­stra­tion and protest, be it to say “no to war” or to ask that jus­tice be ren­dered for the assas­si­na­tion of Berkin Elvan…“Law has been trans­formed into a weapon those in pow­er use against their oppo­nents” says Bar­baros, “this will do for a time and then it will pass. Law is an emp­ty bag. You reap what­ev­er you put in it.”

Français | English | Türkçe Yeni Özgür Politika / sansürsüz link

Reportage by Yavuz Özcan pub­lished in Turk­ish on Decem­ber 5 2019 on Yeni Özgür Politika

You had already been sen­tenced in 1980 and tor­tured in Sansaryan1. What were you accused of at the time?

Per­se­cu­tion had already begun before 1980. Around 1975, due to the fact the var­i­ous polit­i­cal coali­tions could not resolve the coun­try’s prob­lems, uni­ver­si­ties and even high schools became politi­cized and the street became a bat­tle ground. Also, in this same peri­od, Turk­ish cin­e­ma was offer­ing the pub­lic erot­ic films, act­ing as an opi­um. This fact had raised ques­tions of moral­i­ty and, as usu­al, these took homo­sex­u­als as their tar­gets. In those days, I wore red “con­verse” shoes, I was then accused of being a com­mu­nist. It took me 9 years and a vol­un­tary exile to get over this trauma.

Are there oth­er exam­ples of such a sys­tem of justice?

Law is an emp­ty bag. You reap what­ev­er you put into it.

Once gov­ern­ments turn into cal­i­fates for prof­i­teer­ing, leg­is­la­tions stem­ming from inter­na­tion­al treaties with uni­ver­sal appli­ca­tions to civ­il law, jurispru­dence and con­sti­tu­tions are ren­dered sub­jec­tive and non-func­tion­al. Once polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions are trans­formed into com­mer­cial hold­ings, you can lock the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence up in a closet.

The cur­rent Turk­ish Repub­lic is not a State of Law. With bizarre decrees hav­ing val­ue of law (KHK), the state of excep­tion (OHAL) and arbi­trary prac­tices, along with the sys­tem of “secret wit­ness­es” and “inform­ers” the func­tion­ing of jus­tice is ren­dered even more dif­fi­cult. As for exam­ples: in the same man­ner as in the new world order every­where, there is a cult of mon­ey and pow­er and god’s jus­tice remains like the good luck charm in the pack of chewing-gum.

Are there some peo­ple who tell you “you are a scape­goat, we no longer allow you to live in this coun­try, go away”?

Giv­en the tar­get­ing, false accu­sa­tions, false evi­dence, detri­men­tal tri­als, impuni­ty, hate crimes, threats, vio­lence, extor­sions, aggres­sions added on to harass­ment and rape, I can be sub­ject­ed to everything…But that does­n’t mean they will win. I love to fight.

You are an LGBTI, athe­ist, social­ist, ecologist…You wear this chain, this neck­lace around your neck…

What you describe is not a neck­lace. A neck­lace is a jew­el for First Ladies. Mine are medals, a medal of hon­or for human­i­ty. In coun­tries such as the Turk­ish Repub­lic you can become a “scape­goat” for some, “the one to mas­sacre” for oth­ers or then again “a hero”…You can lose mon­ey, your pro­fes­sion or your rep­u­ta­tion. Süley­man Demirel[fotnote]1924–2015. Turk­ish states­man, he served as Prime Min­is­ter, President[/footnot] said “As for rep­u­ta­tion, there is no inter­est, no econ­o­my. It exists or it does­n’t.” All I can say: all those with an aggres­sive atti­tude change when it comes to their inter­ests in busi­ness, in affec­tion, in sex­u­al or phys­i­cal mat­ters. Be it the reli­gious man declar­ing his love, or the min­is­ter’s wife dream­ing of free dress­es, all of them act dif­fer­ent­ly from what they express or demon­strate. As if the impu­dence and trans­gres­sion in their genes reared up inside them…

When you were in jail, Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş’s lawyers came to see you. Did you expect that?

Why should­n’t I expect it? We shook hands at the com­mem­o­ra­tion for Berkin Elvan in the Cemevi 2 in Okmey­danı (Istan­bul). Mer­al Danış Beş­taş was in the cell next to mine. Demir­taş is a man I appre­ci­ate and fol­low. He is an exem­plary fam­i­ly man, a defendor of rights and lib­er­ties. His lawyers came for a vis­it, late one night on their way back from the jail in Edirne [where Demir­taş is incar­cer­at­ed]. I guess the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice must have giv­en a spe­cial autho­riza­tion. As they were look­ing for evi­dence [to use in their accu­sa­tion], they lis­tened to all my vis­i­tors dur­ing this unjust incar­cer­a­tion, the lawyers, the deputies and oth­er vis­i­tors. They were very dis­ap­point­ed, since they found noth­ing to tie into an [ille­gal] orga­ni­za­tion, noth­ing what­so­ev­er. They had me released in the mid­dle of the night and had me acquit­ted. While in jail, I received vis­its from sev­er­al elect­ed mem­bers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of insti­tu­tions among them, İlh­an Cihan­er, Sez­gin Tan­rıku­lu, Atil­la Ser­tel, Zeynep Altıok Akatlı [deputies of the CHP], Tun­cay Özkan, Hakan Aygün [jour­nal­ists, authors], the lawyers in the tri­al against the dai­ly paper Cumhuriyet, mem­bers of the Antalya Bar Asso­ci­a­tion… How­ev­er, of the thou­sands of let­ters sent to me, I received only four. More­over, despite the med­ical report, I was deprived of treat­ment. Once again, I was in con­tact with the rough and offen­sive face of the State.

You were expelled from [North­ern] Cyprus after post­ing a video on social media. When you arrived at Atatürk Air­port in Istan­bul, there was an attempt­ed lynch­ing on your per­son. Why did all of this hap­pen to you?

Barbaros ŞansalI was expelled ille­galy from Chyprus fol­low­ing a sim­ple order. I proved this inhu­man ille­gal­i­ty with the tri­al n°31/2017 opened at the Supreme Admin­is­tra­tive Court of North­ern Chyprus against the Min­istry and min­is­ters of Domes­tic Affairs. Using black humor and a sar­cas­tic style,I had crit­i­cized the abuse against chil­dren, the bribes, the jailed jour­nal­ists, the press releas­es from rad­i­cal islam and the gov­ern­ments med­dling in the domes­tic affairs of oth­er coun­tries. This was in the first hours of the year 2017. On that same night there was the attack against the Reina Club. An oper­a­tion began on Jan­u­ary 1st. In an orga­nized fash­ion, as part of the engi­neer­ing on per­cep­tions, my shar­ing of the video was pre­sent­ed as if I had released it after the attack on the Reina. Tweets that don’t belong to me were cre­at­ed with fake screen grabs. And on Jan­u­ary 2, the sit­u­a­tion swelled toward great indig­na­tion. Despite the fact we had lodged com­plaints against Cem Küçük, Maran­ki, Alişan and oth­ers who were des­ig­nat­ing me as a tar­get, the com­plaints were not tak­en into account.

The Ana­to­lian Agency [the State infor­ma­tion agency] pub­lished my per­son­al data belong­ing to Turk­ish Air­lines. When I arrived, accom­pa­nied by Chyprus police, to be placed in cus­tody by the police of Istan­bul’s secu­ri­ty direc­torate, I was sub­ject­ed to attempt­ed mur­der by the staff of TGS3, Turk­ish Tech­nic 4, TAV 5, EGM 6, Havaş7, Çelebi 8, along with air­port police­men (excerpt from state­ment sub­mit­ted to the court).

While I was being assault­ed, I was also stripped of my belong­ings, from my shoes to the gold watch on my wrist, they disappeared.

Vasip Şahin, the pre­fect of Istan­bul, pro­tect­ed the police­men on duty via a decree with force of law. It took two years to obtain the open­ing of a pub­lic tri­al. At the sec­ond hear­ing, none of the accused showed up and nei­ther did the judge. The hear­ing was then delayed for three months. The next hear­ing will be held in Feb­ru­ary 2020. Impuni­ty has reigned dur­ing all these years. All this hap­pened because I wrote about the wife of an AKP mem­ber and her pas­sion for gam­bling. While she was exhibit­ing dol­lars like flags on the gam­ing tables, her rel­a­tives were hoard­ing the pub­lic’s money.
By the way, what has come out of the attack on the Reina?

Fol­low­ing your expul­sion, what did you think of the atti­tude of the gov­ern­ment of Chyprus?

I have a past in Chyprus since 1965. I have many friends there, in North­ern as well as in South­ern Chyprus. I still go there and I own prop­er­ty there. The lift­ing of Hüseyin Özgürgün’s immu­ni­ty, who was Prime Min­is­ter at the time, is not acci­den­tal. But what is strange is that, as much as I have been ill-treat­ed ille­gal­ly by peo­ple in Turkey or who work for Turkey in North­ern Chyprus, I have received noth­ing but friend­ship, affec­tion and respect from the Turks in South­ern Chyprus. Food for thought. For the gov­ern­ments in North­ern Chyprus, what the Repub­lic of Turkey says is like Revealed Truth.

You did not eat the food pro­vid­ed by the jail. Why?

In jail, you can­not spend more than 300 Turk­ish lira [equiv­a­lent to 46,93€ at cur­rent rates]. The Min­istry of Jus­tice does not autho­rize high­er spend­ing. This sum includes the cost of news­pa­pers, tobac­co, prod­ucts for per­son­al hygiene, clean­ing prod­ucts, and all oth­er costs. (Jour­nal­ist) Tun­cay Özcan lost a kid­ney in Silivri prison. Dur­ing the quar­an­tine peri­od, they attempt­ed to force med­ica­tion on me. And I refused the prison meals, includ­ing the bread because “the bread Berkin car­ried was stained with blood” 9. I tried to sur­vive by buy­ing wrapped foods at the can­teen, with my own money.

Did you think your video share would lead to all this?

In the Repub­lic of Turkey, even if you share noth­ing, every­thing can hap­pen to you. In this coun­try, Lale Oraloğlu [come­di­an] was jailed for a porce­lain plate 10. The brief of indict­ment against Osman Kavala has still not been pro­duced. 11. The Turk­ish Amnesty Tri­al, Tahir Elçi 12, Hrant Dink 13, Behice Boran 14… Every­thing is at their lik­ing. The secu­ri­ty of life and of belong­ings has nev­er been as tram­pled, in any oth­er peri­od. I’m not even men­tion­ing free­dom of opin­ion or of expression.

What did you expe­ri­ence when they arrest­ed you?

My file had been ordered from on high. As I had already lived through arrests, I had grown accus­tomed to them. It also seemed obvi­ous that being inside was safer than being out­side. Those who want­ed me dead want­ed me in iso­la­tion at that time.

And if I asked you where Turkey is headed?

My grand­moth­er used to say: “On the back of a pre­dic­tion, let us head toward the apoc­a­lypse”. In my opin­ion, Turkey is head­ed into the unknown. But things must improve. The Turk­ish Repub­lic has a strong and dynam­ic struc­ture. It can­not be seen in iso­la­tion from the rest of the world. Notions such as racism, nation­al­ism, eth­nic­i­ty, fun­da­men­tal­ism only sell by month­ly install­ment with high inter­est rates. At that price, their com­mer­cial­iza­tion ends up weigh­ing ever more heavily.

For the past 17 years, the AKP has been in power…

Should we say, for the past one thou­sand year or even 12 000 years like Hasankeyf, or again 15 000 years like Göbek­li Tepe? When a coun­try reach­es this con­di­tion, those who live in it, its cit­i­zens are the main cul­prits. They are led as they deserve to be.

We know you are anti-war and we know your actions around this. What would you like to say about what the Kurds are sub­ject­ed to, both here in Turkey as well as in Syria?

Only in Syr­ia? Bruk­i­na Faso, Soma­li, Libya, Con­go, Rwan­da, Rohingya, Kashmir…Only the Kurds? Arme­ni­ans, Yazidis, Ale­vis, LGBTIQ, Jews, Chris­tians, Mus­lims… War brings blood and death, gen­er­ates suf­fer­ing and hatred. As for peace, love, respect and tolerance…War will con­tin­ue as long as the monop­o­lis­tic pro­duc­ers of chem­istry and weapons will man­age, via the media, to get those elect­ed that will do what they want.

Barbaros ŞansalWhat did you live through in prison?

As for what I lived through in jail, I won’t have enough room here to describe it. But those who so wish can be my guest, in my cell, by read­ing my book “Makam Odas/Linç” pub­lished (in Turk­ish) by Destak Yayin­lari. It may not be avail­able in book­stores because it dis­turbs cer­tain peo­ple. But you can find it on inter­net. [Kedis­tan note: Now in its 8th printing].

Do you cur­rent­ly fear for your safety?

I’m told the Turk­ish Repub­lic can pro­vide me a so-called “pro­tec­tion on demand”. But in fact, being con­stant­ly shad­owed by an informer would put my life in dan­ger. I don’t rust them. Dur­ing a planned oper­a­tion, in an inter­na­tion­al air­port, they brought me face to face with death. And now, they are pro­tect­ing the orga­niz­ers and executioners.

Many jour­nal­ists, writ­ers and intel­lec­tu­als are in jail for hav­ing crit­i­cized the gov­ern­ment. What do you think about this?

Jus­tice can be use­ful for every­one, some day. I don’t agree with the sen­tence that says “Law is pow­er’s pros­ti­tute”. In my opin­ion, it should be called a “pimp”. Just like those who, as soon as a source of pow­er is on the decline, go search­ing for new invest­ments and clients…The same thing hap­pens with each coup d’Etat.

You describe your­self as a tai­lor’s appren­tice. Out of modesty?

If you don’t make fun of your­self, life makes sure to make fun of you instead. In a world where mis­tress­es of rich men, incom­pe­tents with no mer­it what­so­ev­er are called fash­ion styl­ists, I pre­fer to describe my pro­fes­sion as that of tai­lor. As my mas­ter Ildirim Mayruk is still alive and still calls him­self a “tai­lor” how else could I describe myself?

As a styl­ist hav­ing done time in jail, what do you think of the so-called “sole cloth­ing” in jail?

Cos­tumes are a sec­tion of per­for­mance arts. The uni­form always dimin­ish­es the one who puts it on. Espe­cial­ly if it this is done with no thought giv­en to its func­tion, its care and repairs. You end up stinky. In the 21st cen­tu­ry, if soci­ety is still attempt­ing to estab­lish a rep­u­ta­tion through cloth­ing, it is because it is ashamed of its nakedness.

You are the child of a fam­i­ly from the elite. Had did you fam­i­ly react to your deci­sion to become a tailor?

I’m not the one who decid­ed, in fact. I start­ed when I was 7 years old with my pater­nal grand­moth­er. But I added vari­a­tions: pro­duc­tion, chore­og­ra­phy, writ­ing, col­lec­tions… I enriched myself through my hob­bies. Besides, I’m against the notion of “fam­i­ly from the elite.” What you called “elites” are only those who get them­selves elected.

Do you think what you have been through was intend­ed to cre­at­ed fear in others?

Only through me?
Fear is their ene­my. The ene­my of plot­ting hye­nas, not mine.

Those who insult me or lie, I expose them on social media. And I come across cer­tain hit­men in dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ments. A num­ber of them ask me “if I go to bed with you, how much will you pay me?” That’s Turkey for you!

Are there any oth­ers in Turkey who man­age to say, or even to howl, “I am a homo­sex­u­al” with as much ease as you do? Where does this courage come from?

I don’t know, I’ve nev­er thought about it. I don’t both­er with what oth­ers will think either. Yes, as far as my body and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion are con­cerned, I am free. I am in peace with myself. In any event, even beyond this, there is not a sin­gle zone of activ­i­ty in which the State does not inter­vene. They could even have us all cir­cum­cised before we even knew it. And in the Turk­ish Repub­lic there are very few homo­sex­u­als. The oth­ers describe them­selves by say­ing; “I am active.”

If not being afraid requires courage, then it is a char­ac­ter trait. I don’t think about what must remain in my life but about those who must leave it behind. And I won’t give up as long as they won’t have tak­en my right to life away.

Dur­ing the Gezi revolt, you rivalled the very best jour­nal­ists. You broad­cast live for hours. Do you have the soul of a journalist?

Gezi was the break­ing point in these lands. The fact they are still chew­ing over Gezi like a wad of gum all these years lat­er, and still search­ing for “exte­ri­or forces” is use­less. With 10 mil­lion par­tic­i­pants, it was the biggest move­ment of social resis­tance in the his­to­ry of the [Turk­ish] Republic.

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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