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On Jan­u­ary 24, the direc­tor of the film Bakur cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day while on tri­al. Last Fri­day night, he was sur­round­ed by friends at the screen­ing of the doc­u­men­tary Our friend Çayan.

Çayan has received awards for his doc­u­men­taries Der­sim 38′ and 5 Nolu Ceza­e­vi (Prison N° 5). Despite the fact he has expe­ri­enced seri­ous health prob­lems for the past 4 years, he was dragged before the courts for his film Bakur (North)…

On March 18 2015, Çayan’s heart sud­den­ly stopped beat­ing… Hos­pi­tal­ized for months, he is treat­ed to this day for the sequels to this heart fail­ure. While he was fight­ing for his life, Çayan Demirel and Ertuğrul Mavioğlu were nonethe­less sen­tenced by the tri­bunal of Bat­man to 4 years and 6 months in prison for Bakur. Dur­ing the tri­al, the tri­bunal took no account of the med­ical report declar­ing Çayan 99% hand­i­capped. The case has been moved to the Court of Appeals since January.

The doc­u­men­tary done by his friends and those who accom­pa­nied him with their cam­era, shows the vital neces­si­ty for his ongo­ing med­ical care and treat­ment. As for Çayan, he is not request­ing gifts for his birth­day, but the respect of his rights as a film­mak­er and a hand­i­capped citizen.

The pre­miere of the doc­u­men­tary Arkadasimiz Çayan took place in Decem­ber 2019 dur­ing the 10th edi­tion of the fes­ti­val “Han­gi İns­an Hak­ları?” (What human rights?)

Fri­day night, accom­pa­nied by his com­pan­ion, trav­el­ling com­pan­ion and pro­duc­er Ayşe Çet­inbaş, Çayan arrived in Ceza­yir hall. Under an avalanche of applause, he raised his left fist on stage and salut­ed friends and close ones in atten­dance. The hall was over­flow­ing and as many peo­ple were wait­ing out­side for an even­tu­al sec­ond projection.

çayan demirel

Çayan the film director…

Çayan entered the film world as pro­duc­tion direc­tor for Özcan Alper’s doc­u­men­tary Bir Bil­im Adamy­la Zaman Ale­minde Yol­cu­luk (Time Trav­el with a Sci­en­tist) about philoso­pher M. Yıl­maz Öner.

Der­sim 38′ fol­lowed, explor­ing the edi­fi­ca­tion of the Nation­al State in Der­sim in the Kur­dish region in 1937/1938 (renamed Tunceli as part of this pol­i­cy of Turk­ish­ness). The film shows how this pol­i­cy was imple­ment­ed through the use of exces­sive force against civil­ians result­ing in the deaths of over 80 000 peo­ple. Çayan Demirel com­bined evi­dence from eye wit­ness­es, sur­vivors, his­tor­i­cal research, offi­cial doc­u­ments and media reports from that peri­od in order to deter­mine if what hap­pened in Der­sim had any­thing to do with a geno­cide. After 5 years of work, this thor­ough doc­u­men­tary was made pub­lic. [Watch Der­sim 38′ in Turk­ish]

In 2009, Çayan pur­sues his jour­ney with the doc­u­men­tary 5 No’lu ceza­e­vi (Prison N°5) about Diyarbakır prison. The film relates the peri­od fol­low­ing the mil­i­tary coup of 1980 in Turkey, and the deaths in pris­ons due to the squalid con­di­tions and tor­ture (299 per­sons). [Watch 5 no’lu ceza­e­vi in Turkish]

In 2013, Çayan directs Dr. Şivan, a doc­u­men­tary trac­ing the life and death of Dr. Şivan while shed­ding light on the recent polit­i­cal his­to­ry of the Kurds. Sait Kır­mızı­to­prak, alias Dr. Şivan, a renowed med­ical doc­tor, became a lead­ing fig­ure of the Kur­dish move­ment in Turkey fol­low­ing his assas­si­na­tion in 1971. He was from one of the fam­i­lies assas­si­nat­ed dur­ing the Der­sim mas­sacre in 1938. [Watch Dr. Şivan  in Turkish]

As for Bakur…
In 2013 dur­ing Newroz, the Kur­dish Spring Fes­ti­val, fol­low­ing the read­ing of a let­ter from Abdul­lah Öcalan, the PKK leader, the orga­ni­za­tion’s with­draw­al was announced at a press con­fer­ence. Jour­nal­ist Ertuğrul Mavioğlu was also in atten­dance… Çayan and Ertuğrul then set to work film­ing the with­draw­al of the gueril­la into the moun­tains in order to archive this his­tor­i­cal process in a doc­u­men­tary. [Watch Bakur with Eng­lish subtitles]

Short­ly after film­ing, the “equi­lib­ri­um” changed in Turkey and the with­draw­al stopped. The doc­u­men­tary then trans­formed into a tes­ti­mo­ni­al on the dai­ly life of the guerilleros in the moun­tain, while nar­rat­ing the his­to­ry of the PKK.

Çayan fin­ished his work in two years and turned the film over for post pro­duc­tion on sound and col­or to Sedat Yıl­maz. On the fol­low­ing day, March 18 2015, Çayan suf­fered a malaise on the street near his home in Beşik­taş Istan­bul. With no pre­vi­ous his­to­ry of car­diac prob­lems, his heart stopped beat­ing. After half an hour of relent­less heart mas­sage, two medics who were pass­ing by total­ly by hap­pen­stance suc­ceed­ed in reviv­ing him.

He was hos­pi­tal­ized but suf­fers from seri­ous neu­ro­log­i­cal deficits due to lack of oxy­gen. He has mem­o­ry, speech and motor problems.

bakurWhile Çayan deep in coma fought for his life, the Istan­bul Film Fes­ti­val announced that Bakur would be shown dur­ing its 34th edi­tion. How­ev­er… the screen­ing was can­celled the day before the screen­ing, sup­pos­ed­ly for “lack of the exploita­tion visa”. All the Turk­ish films in the Fes­ti­val then pulled out as a reac­tion… Bakur found its audi­ence lat­er, dur­ing galas orga­nized in Istan­bul, Diyarbakır and Izmir and it was shown on May 4 2015 in Bat­man in the Yıl­maz Güney cinema.

Dur­ing this whole peri­od, Çayan was still in a coma, fol­low­ing which he spent 5 and a half months in inten­sive care. His treat­ment con­tin­ues to this day.
Two years after the screen­ing in Bat­man, a tri­al opened against Çayan Demirel, Ertuğrul Mavioğlu and Dicle Anter, (who orga­nized the screen­ing), on the grounds of “pro­pa­gan­da for an ille­gal organization.”

Dur­ing the tri­al, Çayan appeared twice before the judge in Bat­man. He said noth­ing oth­er than the fol­low­ing three sen­tences: “I don’t know why I am here. I did noth­ing oth­er than my job. I com­mit­ted no crime.”

Despite the report describ­ing Çayan as 99% hand­i­capped, the ver­dict on July 18 2019 sen­tenced Çayan and Ertuğrul to 3 years in jail. Because it was “a crime com­mit­ted by audio­vi­su­al means”, the sen­tence was increased by half to 4 years and 6 months.

Their lawyers appealed. While the file awaits a hear­ing at the Court of Appeals in Gaziantep, they are on parole with a pro­hi­bi­tion on leav­ing the country…

An odd trial

Ayşe Çet­inbaş under­lines the absur­di­ty of the tri­al. “At the time of the screen­ing in Bat­man, Çayan was in a coma”, she says, not­ing that since he was not there, he should not be accused for the orga­ni­za­tion of the screen­ing. “If the screen­ing was­n’t the prob­lem and the film was, then the tri­al should have tak­en place in Istan­bul were the two direc­tors reside…”

çayan demirel

She adds there is no pro­hi­bi­tion on the film. “In order to screen a film, in prin­ci­ple you must request an exploita­tion visa at the Cul­ture Min­istry. We had not reached that phase yet, so the request had not been filed. When we con­sult the Min­istry, they answer “no, the film is not pro­hib­it­ed since they haven’t filed their request.” Since the tri­al was first opened because of an inde­pen­dent film, we did not stress Çayan’s med­ical con­di­tion. The fact that a doc­u­men­tary film could be put on tri­al and crim­i­nal­ized was a prob­lem in itself which is why we raised our voic­es on that issue.” More specif­i­cal­ly, Ayşe adds “But of course, we had filed with the court all the med­ical doc­u­ments con­cern­ing his con­di­tion. The police came to the house to record his state­ment. But Çayan was unable to answer them. I then brought in the health reports. The inquest moved on to a tri­al against him. We filed his hand­i­cap report, the Health Com­mis­sion’s report… But the tri­bunal took no notice of them. At the final hear­ing, our lawyers were unavail­able and apol­o­gized to the court. The tri­bunal ren­dered its ver­dict in the absence of a defence.”

With his severe hand­i­caps, Çayan can­not han­dle even his most basic needs. He must absolute­ly not be left alone. He has trou­ble walk­ing see­ing… This being the case, he is in no con­di­tion to be incar­cer­at­ed, but this is Turkey…” Ayşe explains. “We brought Çayan to the tri­bunal twice so the judge could note his con­di­tion. It was clear­ly appar­ent. We thought the tri­bunal would pro­nounce its judg­ment tak­ing this into account. On the con­trary, the ver­dict states: “He pre­sent­ed him­self before the tri­bunal and stat­ed his defence. No men­tal, hear­ing or visu­al prob­lems were not­ed pre­vent­ing the exe­cu­tion of his sentence.”

As a reminder Ayşe men­tions Çayan suf­fered his malaise in March. The screen­ing in Bat­man was in May, and the hand­i­cap report is from Decem­ber in the same year. “The tri­bunal con­sid­ers Çayan was not ill at the time of the screen­ing, using the date of the med­ical report as a ref­er­ence. As if it were pos­si­ble to obtain the report of a hand­i­cap on the day one falls ill…”

Çayan is slow­ly recu­per­at­ing thanks to the treat­ment, and the affec­tion and care of those sur­round­ing him. But recov­ery is very slow. Accord­ing to this doc­tor, his entire brain suf­fered dam­age. Some of the sequels have par­tial­ly dis­ap­peared, notably as per­tains to his mem­o­ry. His eyes are unaf­fect­ed but the brain regions rel­a­tive to eye­sight do not allow him to see. “At first every­thing was black,” says Ayşe, “now, after close to five years of treat­ment, he can per­ceive col­ors. But details and faces are still not there.”

Çayan’s projects are still in abeyance. He want­ed to direct a doc­u­men­tary on Hasan Ocak*, who “dis­ap­peared” dur­ing a cus­tody. But there is also a fic­tion adapt­ed from Tohum (Seed) a nov­el by Muzaf­fer Oruçoğlu. And Ayşe Çet­inbaş is the one who will com­plete the doc­u­men­tary Çayan had begun with the musi­cal group Kardeş Türküler.

In sup­port for his health strug­gle but also for jus­tice and against cen­sor­ship, we say, as do his close ones and friends, and as says Bir­can Demir­ci whose arti­cle was a rich source for this one:

Hap­py Birth­day Çayko!”

(*) Hasan Ocak: On March 12 1995, a provocative armed assault in the Gazi neighborhood led to a wave of protest that spead to other neighborhoods in Istanbul. By March 15 there were 22 dead, hundreds of wounded and arrests. Hasan Ocak, a teacher, was placed in custody in this context and “disappeared”. On March 15, his lifeless body was found in the forest of Beykoz near Istanbul. He had been strangled with a wire, his body showed traces of torture and his face had been lacerated to prevent identification. The discovery of his body launched the “Saturday Mothers” movement

Pho­tog­ra­phy : Anıl Olcan / Twit­ter Sus­ma Platformu


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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