Exibart • Leyla, Sakine, Rojbîn: a crime still unpunished

By Prom­e­teo Gallery, pub­lished in Ital­ian on Exibart on 9 Jan­u­ary 2021

Leyla, Sakine, Rojbîn: a crime still unpunished. The contribution of Zehra Doğan

A call for truth and a demand for jus­tice for Sakine Can­sız, Fidan Doğan and Ley­la Sayle­mez: this is the objec­tive of the draw­ing that Zehra Doğan offered on the occa­sion of the “call” orga­nized by the Kur­dish move­ment in France and that on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 9th, between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm local time, will spread through­out the nation, from Paris to Toulouse, Mar­seille, Stras­bourg, Bor­deaux, Rennes.

This Jan­u­ary 9, 2021 marks eight years since the bru­tal mur­der of the three Kur­dish mil­i­tants, exe­cut­ed cold­ly with bul­lets to the head in the Kur­dis­tan Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter in Paris by Ömer Güney. The man, a mem­ber of the Turk­ish fas­cist move­ment that the French gov­ern­ment has recent­ly decid­ed to ban, was the execu­tor on behalf of the Turk­ish secret ser­vice (MIT).

Apart from a series of clues revealed by the inves­ti­ga­tions there was no truth or jus­tice: the mur­der­er died before the tri­al of a seri­ous ill­ness and the French gov­ern­ment soon for­got its promise to shed light on the inci­dent. The need to main­tain rela­tions with Turkey grant­ed impuni­ty, actu­al­ly help­ing to build the per­fect stage for the Islamist and fas­cist infil­tra­tion of Turk­ish author­i­ties into French ter­ri­to­ry, through the instru­men­tal­iza­tion of mosques, the cre­ation of AKP branch­es and the prop­a­ga­tion of pan-Turk­ish ideology.

There is no doubt about it, his­to­ry has already taught us the fal­la­cy of human mem­o­ry: the mur­der­ers, whether they are prin­ci­pals or per­pe­tra­tors, eas­i­ly erase their mem­o­ry, invent­ing a new one by deny­ing what they had done or reduc­ing it to sim­ple actions with­out any guilt. On the oth­er hand, the mem­o­ry of the vic­tims per­pet­u­ates in those who sur­vive them: the fam­i­lies of the mur­dered mil­i­tants, for exam­ple, who filed a com­plaint in 2018, based on rev­e­la­tions from MIT agents.

And while a new judge has been appoint­ed to study the case, the Kur­dish move­ment con­tin­ues in its inten­tion not to let any­one escape the mem­o­ry and for­get what has been, the pains and the injustices.

The draw­ing that Zehra Doğan made, in Kur­dis­tan, and that will be installed by the may­or of the 10th Arrondisse­ment of Paris is born from her deep con­nec­tion with one of the vic­tims, Sakine Can­sız, with whom she shared the same prison Amed, years lat­er. Once again, with her art, the one for which she was arrest­ed, the same one she has nev­er giv­en up and will nev­er give up, Doğan rede­fines the ill-defined bound­aries of a zone that both sep­a­rates and unites per­pe­tra­tors and vic­tims. A zone so incred­i­bly com­pli­cat­ed that it can con­found the pow­er of judg­ment, a zone in which the strug­gle of all against all prevails.

But can you real­ly have your life saved only by col­lab­o­rat­ing with the rul­ing pow­er? On the anniver­sary of the most shame­ful man­i­fes­ta­tion of a pol­i­tics of com­pla­cen­cy, let us join the call of the CDK, Kur­dish women in Europe and Zehra Doğan: when life is at stake, let us try to rec­og­nize our­selves for what we are: fel­low beings.

Prom­e­teo Gallery Ida Pisani responds to this call and joins the peace­ful strug­gle for truth and human jus­tice against all forms of abuse, pow­er and discrimination.

Translation by Prometeo Gallery

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Le petit mag­a­zine qui ne se laisse pas caress­er dans le sens du poil.