Belarus: Wave of detentions must end

Dear Mr. President

We, 48 undersigned organizations from 24 countries, strongly condemn the continuing wave of detentions and harassment of peaceful protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists, anarchists and opposition party members in Belarus.

Most of the detentions and harassment are linked to participation in peaceful protests demanding the cancellation of Presidential Decree No. 3, the so-called “social parasite” legislation, which imposes a tax on unemployed people in Belarus. Decree No. 3 obligates citizens to work a specific number of days or pay a special duty to the State under threat of arrest. This is contrary to Art. 41 of the Belarusian Constitution and violates international human rights law.

According to reports from Belarusian and international human rights organizations, as of 22 March 2017 more than 250 people have been detained since 3 March 2017, including at least 31 journalists. At least 110 people have been sentenced to 3-15 days of administrative arrest. Many of them remain in detention, while others have been subject to different forms of harassment.

We strongly condemn the fact that several detentions of peaceful protesters at different places across Belarus have been carried out with the excessive use of force by Belarusian security officers.

Several Belarusian organizations have announced a demonstration that will take place in Minsk and in other cities in Belarus on 25 March 2017. We are deeply concerned about the physical and psychological integrity of the participants of these protest marches.

As the president of Belarus we urge you:

  • to respect the right to peaceful assembly and expression
  • to ensure that there are no obstructions to the exercising of these rights in Belarus, including in relation to the planned demonstration on 25 March 2017 in Minsk and in other cities across the country
  • to guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of all peaceful protesters at the demonstration on 25 March 2017 in Minsk as well as at all other peaceful demonstrations across Belarus
  • to refrain from the use of excessive force by security officers on 25 March 2017 in Minsk as well as at all other peaceful demonstrations across Belarus
  • to ensure that journalists are able to fully exercise their professional duties, including during  peaceful demonstrations
  • to immediately and unconditionally release all protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists and opposition members who have been detained in connection with the current wave of demonstrations solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of assembly and expression
  • to refrain from preventively detaining journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists, anarchists and opposition activists
  • to immediately stop the persecution, harassment and intimidation of those who exercise their right to freedom of assembly, expression and association and ensure these rights to all Belarusian citizens
  • to abolish Presidential Decree No. 3 since it violates international human rights law

 

Signatories:

Albanian Helsinki Committee

Analytical Center for Interethnic Cooperation and Consultations (Georgia)

Article 19 (UK)

Association UMDPL (Ukraine)

Bir Duino (Kyrgyzstan)

Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)

Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights (Russia)

Charity foundation “East-SOS” (Ukraine)

Civic Belarus (Czech Republic)

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Johannesburg

Committee to Protect Journalists (USA)

Crude Accountability (USA)

FIDH, Paris

Freedom Files (Russia/Poland)

German-Russian Exchange (Germany)

Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia

Helsinki Committee of Armenia

Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Poland)

Human Rights Center “Postup” (Ukraine)

Human Rights Center (Azerbaijan)

Human Rights Information Center (Ukraine)

Human Rights Monitoring Institute (Lithuania)

Humanrights.ch (Switzerland)

Index on Censorship (UK)

Institute Respublica (Ukraine)

International Partnership for Human Rights (Belgium)

IRFS (Azerbaijan)

JEF Europe: Young European Federalists, Brussels

Kazakhstan Interantional Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law

Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (Ukraine)

KRF Public Alternative (Ukraine)

Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights (Switzerland/Germany)

Macedonian Helsinki Committee

Memorial International, Moscow

Menschenrechte in Belarus e.V. (Germany)

Moscow Helsinki Group (Russia)

NESEHNUTI – Independent Social Ecological Movement (Czech Republic)

Norwegian Helsinki Committee

Ostgruppen – Swedish Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights

Promo LEX (Moldova)

Protection of Rights without Borders NGO (Armenia)

Public Verdict Foundation Russia)

Reporters Without Borders International, Paris

The Netherlands Helsinki Committee

The Swiss Helsinki Committee

Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union

World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Geneva

Azerbaijan: Political prisoners hostages to fossil fuel extraction

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Ilgar Mammadov

Azerbaijani opposition politician Ilgar Mammadov was jailed in 2013. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in May 2014 that Mammadov’s arrest and continued detention was in retaliation for criticising the country’s government.

Mammadov is a leader of the Republican Alternative Movement (REAL), which he launched in 2009, and is one of Azerbaijan’s rare dissenting political voices. He was sentenced to seven years in prison after participating in an anti-government protest rally in Ismayilli, a town 200 kilometers outside Baku. Authorities arrested him on trumped-up charges of inciting the protest with the use of violence. Mammadov had previously announced his intent to run for president. Mammadov remains in jail, despite the Council of Europe repeatedly calling for his release. Azerbaijan may be expelled from the council as the country repeatedly refuses to comply with the organization’s requests. John Kirby, spokesman of the US Department of State, also called on Azerbaijan to drop all charges against Mammadov. Reports in November 2015 emerged stating that Mammadov had been tortured by prison officials, which resulted in serious injuries including broken teeth. Mammadov has remained very vocal during his time in jail, writing on his blog about political developments in Azerbaijan and refusing to write a letter asking for pardon from President Ilham Aliyev.

The following is a letter written by Ilgar Mammadov:

International investment in fossil fuel extraction is making me and other Azerbaijani political prisoners hostages to the Aliyev regime.

A thirst for freedom.

Azerbaijan has seen a crackdown on any political dissent over the past few years, with dozens of activists and critics of the regime in Baku going behind bars. So far, there’s little sign of improvement.

Though respectful of the memory of Nelson Mandela, the mass media have occasionally shed light on the late South African leader’s warm relationship with scoundrels such as Muammar Qaddafi and Fidel Castro, as well as his refusal to defend Chinese dissidents. These events have been evoked to invite critical thinking about an iconic figure and balance his place in history.

Most readers of these articles judge a figure they previously held as an idol as hypocritical or tainted. They do not ask questions about the roots of a particular contradiction. In the case of Mandela, the dictators above had supported the anti-apartheid struggle of the African National Congress, while several established democracies indulged the inhuman system of apartheid because of the diamond, oil and other industries, and particularly because of the Cold War.

After only four years in prison, even on bogus charges and a politically motivated sentence, I am nowhere near Mandela in terms of symbolising a cause of global significance. Republicanism in my country, Azerbaijan — where the internationally promoted father-to-son succession of absolute power has disillusioned millions — is hardly comparable to the fight against racial segregation. Still, I can, better than many others, explain the flawed international attitudes that help keep democrats locked in the prisons of the “clever autocrats” who are, in turn, courted by retrograde forces within today’s democracies.

I will tell the story of how plans for a giant pipeline that would suck gas from Azerbaijan to Italy, the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), impacts on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners.

In this letter I will focus only on one tension of the struggle we face here in Azerbaijan — between our democratic aspirations that enjoy only a nominal solidarity abroad, and the attempt to build a de facto monarchy which receives comprehensive support from foreign interest groups.
To be precise, I will tell the story of how plans for a giant pipeline that would suck gas from Azerbaijan to Italy, the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), impacts on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners.

I will tell the story by discussing my own case. But before I tell it, you need to know what the Southern Gas Corridor is and why my release is crucial for the morale of our democratic forces. Indeed, Council of Europe officials say my freedom is essential for the entire architecture of protection under the European Convention of Human Rights, but there is still no punishment of my jailer.

What is the Southern Gas Corridor?

The Southern Gas Corridor is a multinational piece of gas infrastructure worth $43 billion US dollars. It is designed to extract and pump 16 billion cubic metres of natural gas every year from 2018, sucking hydrocarbons from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field to European and Turkish markets. The EU, Turkey, and the US are all eager to connect the pipeline to Turkmenistan so that to an extra 20-30 billion cubic metres of Turkmen gas can be added to the scheme.

Hydrocarbon extraction is the mainstay of the country’s economy. Baku signed the “contract of the century” in 1994, and has attracted western oil and gas giants ever since.

The significance of the SGC is twofold. First, the project could provide up to 8-10% of EU’s gas imports, thus reducing the union’s dependence on Russia. Secondly, it will become another platform for geopolitical access (Russians would use a slightly ominous word “penetration”) of the west to Central Asia.

How did SGC encourage more repression?

Any rational democratic government in Baku would opt for the SGC without much debate and then turn its attention to issues truly important for Azerbaijan’s sustainable economic development. The revenue generated by the project would not be viewed as vital for the country when compared to the country’s economic potential in a less monopolised and more competition-based economy.

However, since the moment when a Russian government plane took Ilham Aliyev’s barely breathing father from a Turkish military hospital to the best clinic in America, in order to smooth the transition of power, the absolute ruler of Azerbaijan has been trained to deal with great powers first and then use such deals to repress domestic political dissent second. He has kept the country’s economy almost exclusively based on selling oil and gas and importing everything else.

Recently, Aliyev has been trying to present the SGC as his generous gift to the west so that governments will not talk about human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan. At one point Aliyev was even considering unilaterally funding the entire project.

Since 2013, Aliyev has instigated an unprecedented wave of attacks on civil society, which he used to illustrate the seriousness of his ambition for energy cooperation with the west.

In the middle of this tug of war, Azerbaijan suddenly found itself short of money due to falling oil prices. It could not fund its share in the parts of SGC that ran through Turkey (TANAP) and Greece, Albania and Italy (TAP) without backing from four leading international financial institutions — the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

During 2016, these institutions said their backing was subject to Azerbaijan’s compliance with the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI). In September, Riccardo Puliti, director on energy and natural resources at the EBRD, cited the resumption of the EITI membership of Azerbaijan as “the main factor” for the prospect of approval of funds for TANAP/TAP.

Together with EIB, EBRD wants to cover US $2.16 billion out of the total US $8.6 billion cost of the TANAP. TAP will cost US $6.2 billion.

What is the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative?

The EITI is a joint global initiative of governments, extractive industries, and local and international civil society organisations that aims, inter alia, to verify the amount of natural resources extracted by (mostly international) corporations and how much of the latters’ revenue is shared with host states. Its purpose, in that respect, is to safeguard transnational businesses from future claims that they have ransacked a developing nation — for instance, by sponsoring a political regime unfriendly to civil society and principle freedoms.

In April 2015, because of the unprecedented crackdown on civil society during 2013-2014, the EITI Board lowered the status of Azerbaijan in the initiative from “member” to “candidate”. This move, alongside falling oil prices, complicated funding for the Southern Gas Corridor. International backers were reluctant to be associated with the poor ethics of implementing energy projects in a country where already fragmented liberties were degenerating even further.

Hence, during 2016, several governments, especially the US, put strong political pressure on Azerbaijan. This resulted in a minor retreat by the dictatorship. Some interest groups claimed at the EITI board that this was “progress”.

The EITI board assembled on 25 October to review Azerbaijan’s situation. I appealed to the board ahead of its meeting.

Why did my appeal matter?

My appeal was heard primarily because, until I was arrested in March 2013, I was a member of the Advisory Board of what is now the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), a key international civil society segment of EITI.

In addition to my status within the EITI, the circumstances of my case — which was unusually embarrassing for the authorities — also played a role:
i) The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had established that the true reason behind the 12 court decisions (by a total of 19 judges) for my arrest and continued detention was the wish of the authorities  “to silence me” for criticising the government;
ii) The US embassy in Azerbaijan had spent an immense amount of man-hours observing all 30 sessions of my trial during five months in a remote town and concluded: “the verdict was not based on evidence, and was politically motivated”;
iii) The European Parliament’s June 2013 resolution, which carried my name in its title, had called for my immediate and unconditional release — a call reiterated in the next two EP resolutions of 2014 and 2015 on human rights situation in Azerbaijan;
iv) Since December 2014, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe had adopted eight (now nine) resolutions and decisions specifically on my case whereby it insisted on urgent release in line with the ECHR judgment.

Due to an onslaught by civil society partners during the 25 October debate, the EITI Board refused to return Azerbaijan its “member” status.

Indecision in America

I am very much obliged to the US embassy for conducting the hard labour of trial observation, but the US government representative’s stance at the EITI board meeting in October was a surprising disappointment.

Mary Warlick, the representative of the US government, insisted that Azerbaijan has made progress worth of being rewarded by EITI membership. Obviously, she was speaking for that part of the US government that wants the SGC pipeline to be built at any cost to our freedom.

A month later, in a counter-balancing act, John Kirby, spokesman of the US Department of State, called on Azerbaijan to drop all charges against me.

Samantha Power’s Facebook posting of my family photo on 10 December, the International day of Human Rights, was also touching. Power is US Permanent Representative at UN. Two years ago, she already mentioned my case in the EITI context at a conference.

Complementing her kindness, around the same time Christopher Smith, Chairman of the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress, in an interview about fresh draconian laws restricting free speech in Azerbaijan, repeated his one year old call for my release.

Yet, on 15 December, Amos Hochstein, US State Department’s Special Envoy on Energy, assured the authorities in Baku that “regardless of any political changes, the US will remain committed to its obligations under the SGC”.

Indecision in Europe

I could set out a similar pattern of European hesitation beginning with my first days in jail.

To be concise, though, let me recall only the fact that on 20 September (the same day that Rodrigo Duterte called the European Parliament “hypocritical” for its criticism of the extra-judicial executions in Philippines), a conciliatory delegation of the EP in Baku not only agreed to hear a lecture from Ilham Aliyev on “[EP] President Martin Schultz and his deputy Lubarek being enemies of the people of Azerbaijan”, but even praised the lecture as a “constructive one”, in the words of Sajjad Karim, the British MEP who had led the delegation.

Political prisoners of Azerbaijan are not worth the amount of money involved in the SGC, but European values probably are.

The aforementioned three resolutions of the European Parliament were thus crossed out as I observed from behind bars.

Two presidents of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Of Europe (PACE) have visited me in prison, but this only highlighted the irrelevance of the body to the situation on the ground. They never stopped talking of how constructive or how ongoing their dialogue with the Azerbaijani authorities has been.

New threats

Our narrow win at the EITI Board exposes us to two new threats. (I do not discuss here the extraneous threats, which may originate from, for example, rising oil prices or collapse of the nuclear deal with Iran, i.e. anything adding confidence or bargaining power to the regime in Baku.)
One is that at the next EITI board meeting in March 2017, those driven by pressing commodity and geopolitical interests may outnumber or otherwise outpower the civil society party. If Ilham Aliyev proceeds with his cosmetic, fig leaf “reforms” or releases those political prisoners who have already pleaded for pardon or surrendered in any other way, the probability of my freedom being sacrificed will arise again.

The other threat is that instead of battling at the EITI, those interest groups may ask the international financial institutions to disconnect the SGC loans from Azerbaijan’s compliance with the EITI. These institutions are easier to convince as they are full of short-termist bank executives, rather than civil society activists concerned with the rule of law, transparency and public accountability.

The second scenario may already be in effect as rumours suggest that the World Bank has endorsed a US $800m loan to the TANAP. If so, then the postponed energy consultations between Baku and Brussels at the end of January may put the loans back on the EITI-friendly track. Political prisoners of Azerbaijan are not worth of the amount of money involved in the SGC, but European values probably are.

Deep jail horizon

Of 11 other members of the ruling body of my civic movement, REAL, three had to flee the country after my arrest, two were jailed (for 1.5 years and one month on charges not related to my case), two are not permitted to travel abroad (again on separate cases); one of them cannot even leave Baku.
From time to time, activists spend days under administrative detention designed to scare others. Nonetheless, we live in a world different from the one which tolerated and even fed apartheid.

Mandela’s fight promoted an agenda and international institutions where we can defend the values of freedom from encroachment by dictators and their business partners. This is why we should not consider the means of resisting oppression or seeking solidarity with other international arrangements any less conventional now. The problem is that when others see that our peaceful efforts are not fruitful, they turn to more radical means to end injustice.

*Mary Warlick is married to James Warlick, US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group mediating in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Therefore, initially I guessed that by being nice to the regime she might have tried to make her husband’s relations with the official Baku easier. But in mid-November, James Warlick announced his resignation from the post, apparently as he had planned, and my guess turned out to be mistaken.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1485781328870-cb0adaa0-0682-7″ taxonomies=”7145″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Turkey: Linguist finds himself locked up for free speech

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Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Linguist and newspaper columnist SEVAN NIŞANYAN has found himself locked up for 16 years after being subjected to a torrent of lawsuits. Researcher JOHN BUTLER managed to interview him for the winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][vc_column_text]

Well-known linguist Sevan Nişanyan will not be eligible for parole in Turkey until 2024. Locked up in the overcrowded Turkish prison system, he has found his initial relatively short jail sentence for blasphemy getting ever longer as he has been subjected to a torrent of “spurious” lawsuits on minor building infringements related to a mathematics village he founded.

Nişanyan, who is 60, spoke exclusively to Index on Censorship. He said he was being kept in appalling conditions. Moved from prison to prison since being jailed in January 2014, he is now being held in Menemen Prison, a “massively overcrowded and brain- dead institution”.

He added: “About two thirds of our inmates were recently moved elsewhere and the remainder pushed ever more tightly into overpopulated wards to make room for the thousands arrested in the aftermath of the coup attempt.”

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1481550218789{padding-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”Nişanyan is adamant that his time has not been wasted. He has been working on the third edition of his Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language, which presently stands at over 1500 pages“” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:24|text_align:justify|color:%23dd3333″ google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css_animation=”fadeIn”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text el_class=”magazine-article”]

Nişanyan’s ordeal started in 2012 when he wrote a blog post about free speech arguing for the right to criticise the Prophet Mohammed. Through notes passed out of his high security prison via his lawyer, Nişanyan told Index what he believes happened next:

“Mr Erdoğan, the then-prime minister, believes in micromanaging the country. He was evidently incensed.

“I received a call from his office inquiring whether I stood by my, erm, ‘bold views’ and letting me know that there was much commotion ‘up here’ about the essay. The director of religious affairs, the top Islamic official of the land, emerged from a meeting with Erdoğan to denounce me as a ‘madman’ and ‘mentally deranged’ for insulting ‘our dearly beloved prophet’.

“A top dog of the governing party, who later became justice minister, went on air to assure us that throughout history, no ‘filthy attempt to besmirch the name of our holy prophet’ has ever been left unpunished. Groups of so- called ‘concerned citizens’ brought complaints of blasphemy against me in almost every one of our 81 provinces. Several indictments were made, and eventually I was convicted for a year and three months for ‘injuring the religious sensibilities of the public’.”

But what happened afterwards was even more sinister. He found himself, while in prison, facing eleven lawsuits relating to a village he was building with the mathematician and philanthropist Ali Nesin. Nişanyan has been involved for many years in a project to reconstruct in traditional style the village of Şirince, near Ephesus, on Turkey’s Western seaboard. It is now a heritage site and popular tourist destination. And nearby, he and Nesin have built a mathematics village which offers courses to mathematicians from all over Turkey and operates as a retreat for maths departments in other countries. They hope it will be the beginnings of a “free” university.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1481549931165{padding-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”Jailing a non-Muslim, an Armenian at that, for speaking rather mildly against Islamic sensibilities… would be a first in the history of the Republic“” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:24|text_align:justify|color:%23dd3333″ google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css_animation=”fadeIn”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

It was this project the Turkish authorities decided to focus on. Nişanyan was given two years for building a one-room cottage in his garden without the correct licence, then two additional years for the same cottage. Nine more convictions for infringements of the building code followed, taking his total term up to 16 years and 7 months.

He, and many others, are convinced that this is a political case, because jail time for building code infringements is almost unheard of in Turkey. He believes the authorities have prosecuted him for these crimes because they do not want his case to cause an international stir.

“Jailing a non-Muslim, an Armenian at that, for speaking rather mildly against Islamic sensibilities… would be a first in the history of the Republic,” he told Index. “It might raise eye- brows both here and abroad.”

Despite everything, Nişanyan is adamant that his time has not been wasted. He has been working on the third edition of his Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language, which presently stands at over 1500 pages.

On entering prison, he signed away most of his property, including the copyright to his books, to the Nesin Foundation which runs the mathematics village he is so passionate about. Today the village has added a school of theatre. A philosophy village is the next project in the works.

“The idea is, of course, to develop all this into a sort of free and independent university,” he said. “I am sure the young people who have come together in Şirince for this quirky little utopia will have the energy and determination to go on in my absence.”

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John Butler is a pseudonym

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This article is from the winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”90772″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229908536530″][vc_custom_heading text=”Slapps and chills” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064229908536530|||”][vc_column_text]January 1999

Julian Petley’s roundup looks at the bullying of broadcasters and asks: are they being SLAPPed around?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89167″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422010388687″][vc_custom_heading text=”Survival in prison” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422010388687|||”][vc_column_text]December 2010

Detained writers suffer from violence, humiliation and loneliness – writing is their only solace.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”93991″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064228408533768″][vc_custom_heading text=”Writers on trial” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064228408533768|||”][vc_column_text]October 1984

The trial outcome is uncertain, but it could mean putting Turkey’s leading intellectuals behind bars for 15 years.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Fashion Rules” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2016%2F12%2Ffashion-rules%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at fashion and how people both express freedom through what they wear.

In the issue: interviews with Lily Cole, Paulo Scott and Daphne Selfe, articles by novelists Linda Grant and Maggie Alderson plus Eliza Vitri Handayani on why punks are persecuted in Indonesia.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”82377″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/12/fashion-rules/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.

Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.

Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.

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Ece Temelkuran: Turkey’s drive to make theatre “suitable”

ece-book-coverIn an extract from her new book, Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy, journalist and author Ece Temelkuran discusses the role of the Turkish ministry of culture in censoring theatre productions. Temelkuran will be speaking at Waterstones Trafalgar Square on 20 Sept

In 2013, the Ministry of Culture began to evaluate its subsidies to private theatres under the criterion of being “suitable with regard to public decency”. This enforcement arose as part of the Turkey Art Association (TÜSAK), which was put forward in a bill advocating the audition and support of art associations affiliated with the state. In this way, the legal foundation for state-imposed censorship was laid.

For the evaluation of private theatre companies’ grant requests to the Ministry of Culture, submission of the play’s script was made obligatory. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was removed from the State Theatre repertoire in 2014.

In December 2014, Sevket Demirkaya, who had previously held positions such as wrestling referee and municipal police chief, was appointed Director of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Theatre Company. In 2013, the Ministry of Culture cut off its funding to the company of Genco Erkal, one of the most acclaimed stage personalities in Turkey, for supporting the Gezi protests. The Directorate General of State Opera and Ballet prohibited the wearing of certain garments, including leggings, in October 2014.

Theatre wasn’t the only thing Erdogan had a beef with, naturally. He was also passionate about sculpture. On 8 January 2011, during election preparations in Kars – a place the whole world is familiar with thanks to Orhan Pamuk’s novel Snow – he was once again yelling, “Freak show!”

The freak show in question was an enormous statue. The mayor, a member of his own party, was having a peace statue built in the city bordering Armenia, a statue that could be seen from Erivan. The work, by one of Turkey’s most renowned sculptors, Mehmet Aksoy, had just been completed when it turned out that it didn’t suit Erdogan’s tastes. A few months after Erdogan appraised the sculpture as a “freak show”, it was demolished in spite of every court ruling, and at quite a high cost. The worst part about it all was the cry of “the people” as they set about its destruction:

“Allahu akbar!”

I suppose that the intellectuals who were irked when I suggested that sometimes Turkey was like Afghanistan with a nicer shop window, who thought it “elitist and Jacobin”, probably shared my apprehensions on the day they witnessed that savage and wanton destruction.

Erdogan was also interested in music. That was why the work of Fazıl Say, a world-renowned composer and pianist who was critical of the AKP administration, was immediately removed from the repertoire of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra.

Perhaps the eeriest of these persecutions over the years came in December 2011, from the Minister of Internal Affairs. The Minister said: “The backyard of terrorism, walking around the back, and by backyard this could be Istanbul, could be Izmir, Bursa, Vienna, Germany, London, wherever – it could be a podium at the university, an association, a non-governmental organisation … They look like they’re just singing but they say something to the audience in between three songs, squeeze in a few lovely words. Whatever you take from it, however you understand it. They’re making art on that stage. What can you do? We are not against art, but we have to weed these out with the meticulousness of a surgeon.”

I wish the best of luck to the translator who has to translate these words. I hope readers, too, will manage to keep their wits intact after so much of the government’s poor self-expression.

In the wake of these declarations that signalled a new onslaught of custody and persecution, artists came up with a parody petition:

“Ban art! Put art within the scope of terrorist activity!”

This is an extract from Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy (Zed Books, 2016) by Ece Temelkuran, which is available now.

Ece Temelkuran will be participating in two upcoming events:

15 Sep: The State of Turkey with Kaya Genç, Ece Temelkuran and Daniel Trilling

Join Index on Censorship magazine’s contributing editor Kaya Genç and fellow Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran for a discussion about the state of Turkey in the aftermath of the failed military coup.

20 Sep: Author Ece Temelkuran on the struggles that have shaped Turkey

Join Index on Censorship’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg as she presents an evening with award-winning journalist and novelist Ece Temelkuran to discuss her latest book Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy.


Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.

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