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Dear friends,

The recent events of the past months clear­ly indi­cate that Erdoğan regime has tight­ened its grip on dis­si­dent voic­es: The arrest and tri­al of Dr Şeb­nem Fin­cancı (a doc­tor of med­i­cine and human rights activist, the head of Turk­ish Doc­tors Asso­ci­a­tion), the tri­al of Pinar Selek, bans on in the inter­net, and bans on books… One more book banned: “Even Silence Is No Longer Yours”.

Noth­ing real­ly dra­mat­ic! One more book is not allowed into pris­ons, libraries, schools, pub­lic places, one more book that no one will dare to sell! My book!

“Not Even the Silence Belongs to You Any­more” is six years old. It has been first pub­lished in France (“Même le silence ne vous appar­tient plus”, Actes Sud) while I was in prison, the audio­book has been voiced by Cather­ine Deneuve (Edi­tions des femmes) and then trans­lat­ed into sev­er­al lan­guages includ­ing Ger­man, Greek, Swedish, Nor­we­gian, Roman­ian and Ital­ian. The book, with its tit­tle bor­rowed from Seferis, is essen­tial­ly a book of lit­er­a­ture and the hold­er of Vicen­zo Padu­la Prize in Italy. Texts from the book have been adapt­ed into the­ater in Graz and now are cur­rent­ly being adapt­ed into opera in France. For most of its read­ers, it is also a book of literature.

I would like to point out once again that none of the arti­cles in this col­lec­tion were ever charged! Some were put in my court file as evi­dence dur­ing my court case (Özgür Gün­dem tri­als) and hence got acquit­ted! Twice… The atroc­i­ties I have writ­ten about have long been proven. Con­fronting the crimes com­mit­ted against Arme­ni­ans is not an offense to Turk­ish nation, on the con­trary, it helps us to con­front the present reality.

There are oth­er dimen­sions to con­sid­er in this ban. It is a rejec­tion of Kur­dish cul­ture, lan­guage, iden­ti­ty and in fact real­i­ty… E. is a promi­nent Kur­dish poet (please keep his offi­cial name hid­den) as well as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er. He has trans­lat­ed my nov­el “The Stone Build­ing” into Kur­dish in 2020. We had ded­i­cat­ed the copy­rights to pub­lish­ing of lit­er­ary man­u­scripts polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. As he was about to fin­ish the trans­la­tion of my oth­er nov­el “The City in Crim­son Cloak”, his hand­writ­ten trans­la­tion was con­fis­cat­ed. While he was in a legal fight to get his man­u­script back, a new court case start­ed, this time for the book of essays, and appar­ent­ly end­ed with our defeat. The High Court con­firmed the ban.

Here are a few lines from the court deci­sion (already con­firmed by the High Court 24.11.2022) on the book in Turkey: 

“defames the Turk­ish mil­i­tary forces, slan­ders the Turk­ish police and mil­i­tary with claims impos­si­ble to prove, com­pares the bom­bard­ment of Lice (in 1993) to Kristall­nacht, defames Turk­ish pris­ons, accus­es and crim­i­nates Turk­ish state by claim­ing that the state is mer­ci­less and dis­crim­i­nat­ing, offends Turk­ish nation by accept­ing the so-called Armen­ian geno­cide, presents ter­ror orga­ni­za­tion mem­bers as inno­cent vic­tims by keep­ing silent about their deeds and can cause hatred and vengeance in the pris­on­ers, and neg­a­tive reac­tions to the prison personnel”… 

My response: I have been writ­ing since 1998 in Turk­ish and for­eign press, and none of my arti­cles had ever been tak­en to court. My claims have long been proven and even admit­ted by the state, sev­er­al news reports, tes­ti­monies, doc­u­men­taries are avail­able. I have been acquit­ted from all charges laid on me sole­ly on the fact that I was on the advi­so­ry board of Özgür Gün­dem (Arti­cle 302, “the destruc­tion of the uni­ty of state”, along with mem­ber­ship to a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion as well as ter­ror pro­pa­gan­da) My arti­cles were put into the file as “evi­dence” , then the case was reopened in 2020 for repet­i­tive pro­pa­gan­da, and result­ed in acquit­tal once more. 

Trans­la­tion into Kur­dish: The PKK pris­on­er and Kur­dish poet E. has trans­lat­ed my nov­el “The Stone Build­ing and Oth­er Places” into Kur­dish, pub­lished by Aryen Pub­lish­ing in 2020. (“Avahiya Keviri u En Din”) As a sym­bol­ic ges­ture of sol­i­dar­i­ty, the pub­lish­er and I had decid­ed to donate the copy­rights of the book to polit­i­cal pris­on­ers try­ing to pub­lish their texts. E. on has car­ried on trans­lat­ing my work. First his trans­la­tion of “The City in Crim­son Cloak” has been con­fis­cat­ed by the prison author­i­ties. Then the prison author­i­ties didn’t let in my book of essays, the court case result­ed in the con­vic­tion of the book.

Now with this court deci­sion, not only the book will be pre­vent­ed from enter­ing into all pris­ons, but also from schools and libraries and offi­cial insti­tu­tions. It is not yet a con­fis­ca­tion order, so the book sell­ers are still able to sell, but with this court deci­sion, they run the risk of con­fis­ca­tion. Hence in prac­tice, it will hin­der the dis­tri­b­u­tion and sale of the book.

But it is more than a book that is at risk at the moment. This court deci­sion is a pun­ish­ment for all those that crit­i­cize the state vio­lence, that is clear. But also, I inter­pret this is an attempt to pre­vent all sol­i­dar­i­ty actions with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and between writ­ers of Turk­ish and Kurdish.
This is an act of oppres­sion against lit­er­a­ture break­ing the boundaries!

I believe that this is also a delib­er­ate act to stop all actions of sol­i­dar­i­ty between writ­ers of Turk­ish and Kur­dish, all actions of sol­i­dar­i­ty between polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and those who are tem­porar­i­ly out.

It is just one more book. Among thou­sands… But it is my “Word”, E.‘s “Word”, our voic­es join­ing in to com­pose a tune that we want to sing togeth­er, a tune that will rise high­er with each human heart hear­ing it…

Many thanks to those that want to join us.

Aslı Erdoğan

 

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