Zehra Doğan was forced back into jail last June. She has been incar­cer­at­ed in Diyarbakır (Amed) since.

We will nev­er say it enough: In the past two years, and espe­cial­ly since what has been a gen­uine civil­ian coup d’état in 2016 and the per­ma­nent state of emer­gency that has fol­lowed in Turkey, Zehra, like thou­sands of oth­er men and women, has been charged with the grotesque accu­sa­tion of « ter­ror­ism and ter­ror­ist propaganda ».

Jour­nal­ism is not a crime, nor are writ­ing, paint­ing, draw­ing, encour­ag­ing art, cul­ture and reflec­tion. In Turkey, teach­ing human­ism, trans­mit­ting knowl­edge have become so many acts of insub­or­di­na­tion. Being young and proud of one’s birth, of one’s cul­ture, defend­ing its exis­tence and a viable future are also for­bid­den to gen­er­a­tions of men and women dis­crim­i­nat­ed against because they are Kur­dish, and assim­i­lat­ed with ter­ror­ism and the « destruc­tion of the Turk­ish Nation ». Being a human­ist and defend­ing human rights also leads to jail.

Not only does Zehra Doğan accu­mu­late all these pos­si­ble « fat­was » but she also pro­claims her strug­gle as a woman. She was one of the founders of the JINHA press agency, entire­ly staffed by women (a first), an agency now closed by gov­ern­men­tal decree

In 2016, we had launched an appeal for Aslı Erdoğan, an appeal that was relayed, ampli­fied, inter­pret­ed in var­i­ous forms, and became a true mobi­liza­tion, a chain of sol­i­dar­i­ty that bloomed on 3 continents.
Aslı is a writer. She is still deal­ing with an end­less tri­al. She had writ­ten on a num­ber of issues that shed light on Turk­ish real­i­ty. Her peers, edi­tors and pub­lish­ers, librar­i­ans main­ly and an immense major­i­ty of read­ers held « read­ings », « sol­i­dar­i­ty evenings », gath­er­ings of live art, demand­ing her release, even a pro­vi­sion­al one
Even know­ing this wasn’t enough and even if Aslı’s noto­ri­ety played a large part in the press and media relays, lit­er­ary and oth­er, Asli is now free on parole and prizes await her a bit all over Europe.
All this to say that, for a time, Aslı sym­bol­ized all of Turkey’s polit­i­cal hostages, and that putting for­ward one name, one per­son, does not mean restrict­ing essen­tial sol­i­dar­i­ty or depriv­ing one­self from describ­ing beyond it to a sit­u­a­tion of cat­a­stroph­ic dimensions.

And because Zehra Doğan is an even a stronger fig­ure of resis­tance, and proves it every day, Kedis­tan has set itself the task of hav­ing her see the star­ry night again as soon as pos­si­ble. For this, we need all of you, our read­ers. For the kedi will nev­er man­age it alone.

You should know that Zehra Doğan was incar­cer­at­ed again in June 2017 because an add-on was added to the charges against her to rein­force the  sen­tence. She had held an exhi­bi­tion in Diyarbakır titled “141”, refer­ring to the num­ber of days she had spent in the Mardin jail while await­ing judg­ment. She was not « well-behaved » there, and con­tributed draw­ings to a hand-script­ed issue of Özgür Gün­dem, a news­pa­per closed by gov­ern­men­tal decree.

An infor­ma­tion cam­paign made her name known and her face final­ly appeared in the demon­stra­tions in front of Turk­ish embassies in Europe. She obtained a tem­po­rary release and used the time to paint and draw in con­di­tions of great urgency.
We can state here that all « offi­cial » doors on which we knocked in Euro­pean coun­tries were shut when we invoked the duty of « human­i­tar­i­an sol­i­dar­i­ty » pro­claimed by politicians…Without a favor­able recep­tion, Zehra could only become the regime’s prey once again. We give the fin­ger here to all politi­cians and diplo­mats who will rec­og­nize themselves…
No, no one will wait for the regime’s clemen­cy nor will stay fret­ting and mop­ing with arms crossed.

To watch other Zehra's videos click HERE

Defend­ing Zehra Doğan means sup­port­ing all the oth­ers, politi­cians, jour­nal­ists, artists, authors, teach­ers, ordi­nary men and women thrown out of their lives, in jail or in abeyance.

And so : it’s a gen­er­al mobilization !

A book will be pub­lished in August, “Les yeux grands ouverts”, (Eyes wide open) with a selec­tion of texts by Zehra, her sto­ry and the great major­i­ty of her pic­to­r­i­al works to have left Turkey, in antic­i­pa­tion of Zehra in per­son. We are announc­ing it here but will spend much more time on the top­ic in the com­ing months.

An exhi­bi­tion of some fifty paint­ings and draw­ings is being final­ized – those she did dur­ing the brief respite between her two incar­cer­a­tions. This project is entire­ly accord­ing to Zehra Doğan’s deci­sions and choic­es, and Kedis­tan is doing noth­ing oth­er than tak­ing on respon­si­bil­i­ty for it over here. Not so it will be a con­fi­den­tial exhi­bi­tion ; quite the con­trary, we want it to serve as a medi­um for a Euro­pean sol­i­dar­i­ty we call down with all our wishes.

And so, asso­ci­a­tions, artists, jour­nal­ists, man­agers of artis­tic events or of exhi­bi­tion venues…

Zehra Dogan Douarnenez

Click to enlarge

We’re lis­ten­ing to all ini­tia­tives you may take on as relays. We have over one year to open up sup­port that can be seen, heard, passed on…

Oth­er projects are being final­ized, includ­ing direct links of sup­port allow­ing Zehra to hold on, to know whe is not alone beyond the sin­cere friends and activists already act­ing in con­crete solidarity.

A pre-release of the sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paign will be held in Douarnenez dur­ing the film fes­ti­val between August 18 and 26. Some of her orig­i­nal works will be on dis­play, the book will be avail­able, and Kedis­tan will be there also.

And, of course, the web and social net­works will be impor­tant vec­tors. A ded­i­cat­ed web­site as well as a face­book page and a twit­ter account await your sub­scrip­tion to stay informed on what will follow.

For Face­book users, add the page to your favorites, like it and con­nect to it. Share with your favorite groups, invite your con­tacts to join…

Every small ges­ture and use­ful click at your lev­el will help to spread the word…

Site zehradogan.net | Facebook FreeZehra Doğan | Twitter @zehradoganjinha

This trav­el­ing exhi­bi­tion will be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inform, through con­fer­ences, dis­cus­sions and con­tacts with local media on the sit­u­a­tion in Turkey and to demand an end to Zehra Doğan’s wicked­ly unfair incar­cer­a­tion and that of all the oth­er hostages…

So, local and nation­al asso­ci­a­tions, con­cerned polit­i­cal groups, to your sol­i­dar­i­ties and pro­pos­als. You know the address…
Final­ly, you may write to her, know­ing that only writ­ings in Turk­ish will be hand­ed over. Not to wor­ry, we will soon be offer­ing pre-print­ed post­cards dur­ing the exhi­bi­tions, and the address as well as texts for re-copy­ing are avail­able HERE.

French : Turquie • Zehra Doğan, rebelle et insoumise
English : Turkey • Zehra Doğan, rebellious and unsubmitted
Turkish : Türkiye • Asi ve boyun eğmeyen Zehra Doğan

 


Trans­la­tion by Renée Lucie Bourges
iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com

Traductions & rédaction par Kedistan. Vous pouvez utiliser, partager les articles et les traductions de Kedistan en précisant la source et en ajoutant un lien afin de respecter le travail des auteur(e)s et traductrices/teurs. Merci.
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