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As her fam­i­ly was rejoic­ing over the soon-to-be lift­ed pro­hi­bi­tion on vis­its caused by the Covid pan­dem­ic, it learned on Wednes­day June 9th that Nûdem received a dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sure for “dis­obe­di­ence”.

The news fell in the morn­ing as the fam­i­ly pre­pared for its week­ly phone com­mu­ni­ca­tion – one of pris­on­ers’ inalien­able rights – and learned it had been cancelled.

Nûdem Durak had “sung in Kur­dish” in the prison quar­ters of the Bay­burt prison where she is detained. Or rather, accord­ing to the pen­i­ten­tiary’s admin­is­tra­tion in “a for­bid­den lan­guage we do not under­stand”.  The sanc­tion fell, regard­less of whether the song was a bal­ad, a love song or a call to fight­ing on.

Speak­ing of anoth­er friend, Zehra Doğan who was in Mardin prison with Nûdem in 2016, wrote in an arti­cle:
“Menal has a beau­ti­ful voice…She makes the winds rise in the heart of all the pris­on­ers who lis­ten. She grabs every one of them, car­ries them to their destroyed and burned lands where her melodies sow seeds of free­dom. Not for noth­ing is a dis­ci­pli­nary inves­ti­ga­tion begun every time Menal sings.”

The Turk­ish pen­i­ten­tiary admin­is­tra­tion thus repress­es in a con­stant and arbi­trary way the beau­ty of voic­es and of songs. This time, Nûdem Durak is tar­get­ed, she who is pre­cise­ly in the gaol because she is a Kur­dish musi­cian and singer.

For the time being, we can­not know the dura­tion of the dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dure and if it will be extend­ed to vis­it­ing and postal rights. Is this sanc­tion accom­pa­nied by phys­i­cal iso­la­tion in a cell? Here again, the fam­i­ly was not informed.

The facts call for a sim­ple con­clu­sion: in the face of this iso­la­tion, sol­i­dar­i­ty must be more on the front­line than ever. Echo­ing Nûdem’s voice every­where is a must.

On social net­works, with those press and media you know, on the pages and sup­port groups for the Kurds, Nûdem must be talked about more than ever, with a demand for the lift­ing of this iso­lat­ing punishment.

Share this infor­ma­tion, and the sup­port page.


Inter­na­tion­al Cam­paign “Free Nûdem Durak”
Face­bookTwit­terInsta­gramYouTube | Col­lecte


Her fam­i­ly must be able to see this transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty just as it is per­ma­nent­ly informed of the “Free Nûdem Durak” cam­paign. This is also the slight con­so­la­tion you can bring her fam­i­ly in the circumstances.

Singing in Kur­dish is not a crime, nor is it an act of ter­ror­ism. Speak­ing and singing one’s lan­guage is an ele­men­tary and fun­da­men­tal human right.

As a reminder:

To write to Nûdem:

Nûdem Durak
M Tipi Kapalı Kadın Cezaevi
Bay­burt TURQUIE

And to write to a few others…

Find the list HERE.


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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Le petit mag­a­zine qui ne se laisse pas caress­er dans le sens du poil.