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.