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Zehra Doğan is still in deten­tion at the wom­en’s max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison in Diyarbakır. Writ­ing to her is still pos­si­ble, it’s easy, and it costs noth­ing oth­er than a sim­ple moment of humanity.

With the extreme nation­al­is­tic ten­sion that has gripped Turkey in the past few weeks since the armed aggres­sion against Afrin (North­ern Syr­ia) and its North­ern Demo­c­ra­t­ic Fed­er­a­tion, the pris­on­ers and hostages of the Turk­ish regime are more than ever in need support.

Many asso­ci­a­tions such as Amnesty, PEN Inter­na­tion­al, and oth­ers in Europe, the full list of which we can’t pro­vide, do a remark­able job of this sol­i­dar­i­ty at the dai­ly level.

There exists an ongo­ing cor­re­spon­dence with Zehra Doğan — excerpts from which we will trans­late for you some day — that show to what a degree the hostages’ dai­ly resis­tance needs support.

Con­tacts with the out­side world still respect some of the inter­na­tion­al pro­vi­sions on pris­ons. The exchange of let­ters is one of these, even if it is sub­ject to cen­sor­ship and absurd rules.

We invite you once again to write and to ask oth­ers to write to Zehra.

Let­ters in Turk­ish have a bet­ter chance of clear­ing cen­sor­ship. Of course, you may sign with your name and address…

Here is one trans­lat­ed mod­el that can be recopied in its Turk­ish version.

Dear Zehra,
There is talk about you in Europe and I’m famil­iar with a few of your works through Inter­net. I know you and your cell­mates will recov­er your free­dom. The bad days will end and the free woman you are will be even freer. With admi­ra­tion for your courage. A big greet­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty from far away.

Trans­la­tion in Turk­ish to be recopied :

Sevgili Zehra,
Avrupa’da senden bahsediliy­or. Eser­lerinden bazılarını Internet’ten biliy­o­rum. Biliy­o­rum, sen de diğer tutuk­lu arkadaşların da bir gün özgür­lüğünüze kavuşa­cak­sınız. Kötü gün­ler son bula­cak ve özgür bir kadın olan sen, daha da özgür ola­ca­cak­sın. Cesare­tine hayran­lık duyuy­or ve uza­k­lar­dan dayanış­ma dolu bir selam yolluyorum.

The address:

PLEASE NOTE: A forced removal mea­sure has just been tak­en by the Turk­ish State against Zehra Doğan. She has been sent to the sin­is­ter prison in Tar­sus (Octo­ber 23, 2018). READ: Turkey • Zehra Doğan deport­ed with 20 prisoners
None of the cor­re­spon­dence sent to to the for­mer address in Diyarbakır prison will reach Zehra. New address:

Zehra Doğan C‑3
Tarsus Kadın Kapalı CİK 
Alifakı Mahallesi Alifakı sokak 
Tarsus – MERSİN 
TURKEY

The exhi­bi­tions of Zehra Doğan’s orig­i­nal works will con­tin­ue. As will those of repro­duc­tion cir­cu­lat­ing through­out 2018.

Sup­port ini­tia­tives are tak­ing place, in large cities such as Lon­don, Vien­na as well as in French provin­cial towns, with the shar­ing of her texts as well as of her pic­to­r­i­al work. You will find reg­u­lar updates on these in Kedis­tan’s agenda.

Her sup­port web is widen­ing, and this is good news.

In an active and mil­i­tant way, we will also con­tin­ue to safe­guard her rights and her image that some, as we well know, would like to “com­mer­cial­ize” if they were allowed to do so…

Some fifty of her prison works will be framed and secured very soon, for a sep­a­rate exhi­bi­tion illus­trat­ing a new peri­od in Zehra’s art, and a demon­stra­tion of her resistance.

Here are a few of these visuals:

Zehra Doğan

You must also know that the extreme ten­sion in Turkey has reper­cus­sions inside the pris­ons and that “reprisals” are fre­quent right now, with sanc­tions exer­cised against vis­it­ing rights, correspondence…with each demon­stra­tion of resis­tance. So…

To your pens ! 

Oth­er mod­els for let­ter-writ­ing are avail­able HERE. Cards or sug­ges­tions for ini­tia­tives, HERE (in french).

And if you wish to con­tribute to the ongo­ing cam­paign, to the fram­ing, it’s right this way (in french)


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