In June 2015 dur­ing an elec­toral meet­ing of the Peo­ple’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (HDP) in Amed (Diyarbakır), Lisa Çalan, Kur­dish film mak­er, lost both legs fol­low­ing a bomb attack attrib­uted to ISIS.


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Lisa fought relent­less­ly in order to recov­er her health and, thanks to her pros­thet­ics, she stood tall again. Last March the 8th, for the World Day ded­i­cat­ed to wom­en’s rights, she offered up to pub­lic opin­ion a mov­ing image of strength and dig­ni­ty  by film­ing her­self danc­ing for women.

But the revolt­ing and grotesque polit­i­cal harass­ment  to which Lisa is now sub­ject­ed is extreme­ly sym­bol­ic of the con­tempt for all oppo­nents in Turkey, espe­cial­ly if they are Kurdish.

Grant­ed through a legit­i­mate deci­sion award­ing employ­ment to vic­tims of ter­ror­ism, an oblig­a­tion that appears in the Law against ter­ror­ism, she worked in the cul­tur­al sec­tion of Diyarbakir’s met­ro­pol­i­tan City Hall, as a stage designer.

Except…

Lisa Çalan by Zehra Doğan

Lisa Çalan danse. Zehra Doğan. March 2019

Accord­ing to the results of the local elec­tions on March 31 2019, Selçuk Mızrak­lı and Hülya Alök­men Uyanık (HDP) were elect­ed as co-May­ors with 62.93% of the votes. For starters, Hülya Alök­men Uyanık was denied the right to exer­cise her man­date. She belongs to one of the 6 Kur­dish local­i­ties where the elect­ed ones did not receive their man­date because they were fired by decree before hand as part of the purges. Then on August 19 2019, Diyarbakır’s co-May­or Selçuk Mızrak­lı was removed from office. He was arrest­ed on Octo­ber 22 and thrown in jail. Yet anoth­er co-May­or among the 24, all of them accused of belong­ing to a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. After his des­ti­tu­tion in Sep­tem­ber, the State des­ig­nat­ed an “admin­is­tra­tor” for Diyarbakir’s City Hall…

And Lisa Çalan was fired. 

In an inter­view con­duct­ed by Özlem Akar­su Çelik and pub­lished on Gazete Duvar, Lisa Çalan says: “I had a pret­ty good idea of what would hap­pen to me. Our tri­al (con­cern­ing the attack in Diyarbakir) which last­ed for years, final­ly end­ed last month. The three ISIS accused were sen­tenced to jail. The State admit­ted its respon­si­bil­i­ty (for the lack of secu­ri­ty) and pro­vid­ed me with indem­ni­ty. Then, I was fired…

Will I nev­er be able to leave court­rooms? For years, I ran after jus­tice, mov­ing back and forth between tri­als. And appar­ent­ly, this time, I will have to go back to the courts for my right to work.

 After los­ing my legs, I went through so many surg­eries that I can no longer remem­ber their num­ber. I am still under treat­ment. I need social secu­ri­ty for the main­te­nance and repair of my pros­thet­ics and to deal with the costs of my treat­ment. Every­one knows that. I trav­el abroad reg­u­lar­ly for adjust­ments to my pros­thet­ics. I han­dle all those costs on my own.

I have nev­er stopped fight­ing to raise myself up, to stand and face the assas­sins in court and demand the ren­der­ing of accounts. I will fight also against those impos­ing this injus­tice on me”.


Jan­u­ary 8: The trustee of the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Diyarbakır said :

Çalan, admin­is­tra­tor of the Diyarbakır met­ro­pol­i­tan munic­i­pal­i­ty has made state­ments about the end of her employ­ment. Her con­tract has not been renewed. A dis­ci­pli­nary inves­ti­ga­tion had been opened against Lisa Çalan and three staff mem­bers, in the same sit­u­a­tion, for unjus­ti­fied absences. This is the only reason”


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