19 Oct 2018 | Global Journalist (Spanish), Journalism Toolbox Spanish, Spain
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Previo a publicación de un nuevo informe sobre las amenazas a los medios de comunicación en el país, Rhodri Davies habla con los sirios que crearon su propia emisora de radio.
“][vc_single_image image=”22592″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]«Compramos unos trapos muy gruesos para fabricar una especie de insonorización; así nuestras voces no se oirían desde fuera y el sonido de las bombas no entraría al apartamento», cuenta el periodista Dima Kalayi, describiendo cómo un grupo de personas unió sus fuerzas en un piso diminuto y comenzó a realizar programas para una emisora independiente siria. El piso de Damasco fue el primer lugar en el que pudieron reunir a gran parte del equipo de la nueva emisora.
«Queríamos que SouriaLi fuera un ejemplo de cómo nos gustaría que [fuera] Siria en el futuro», dice Caroline Ayub, una de los cuatro cofundadores de la emisora, que ayudó a montarlo todo desde el exilio. Ayub explica que querían mostrar la identidad diversa de Siria, al mismo tiempo que recordaban también la cultura que todos tienen en común. Por otro lado, les daba la sensación de que se recurría demasiado a los medios internacionales para informarse sobre su propio país.
«Para nosotros, el objetivo principal de la revolución era expresar la propia voz e identidad. Y para ello es esencial hacer que esa voz continúe», añade Ayub, que huyó a Marsella tras haber estado presa durante un mes en 2012 por distribuir huevos de Pascua con citas sacadas de la Biblia, junto a otras del Corán (las autoridades la acusaron de terrorismo).
SouriaLi, que puede traducirse como «Siria es mía», transmite las 24 horas y cuenta con podcasts, contenido visual y una app. Sin embargo, no compite contra los programas de noticias duras a tiempo real. La intención de la emisora es reflejar los problemas que sufre el país por medio de debates y tertulias —interactuando en vivo con el público por WhatsApp y Skype regularmente—, así como radionovelas y cuentacuentos.
Lo suyo es verdadera vocación. El informe del Comité para la Protección de los Periodistas, cuya publicación está prevista para noviembre, hará mención a la creciente gravedad de la situación de los periodistas sirios y espera que el país pase de estar en tercer lugar a ser la segunda nación más peligrosa en su índice global.
SouriaLi se vale de periodistas para recabar información, que luego contrasta con otras fuentes. Al contar con miembros provenientes de una amplia área geográfica dentro del país —aunque la mayoría viven ahora en el exilio—, su red de contactos en Siria es “extensa”, según Iyad Kalas, otro cofundador y director de programación. Explica que siempre examinan la procedencia de las fuentes y el modo en el que se ha obtenido la información para poder establecer su nivel de credibilidad.
Su serie semanal titulada Yadayel(“Trenzas”) cuenta historias de mujeres, como el trato que reciben en puestos de control, la experiencia de vivir en Raqa bajo el control del EI o cómo es trabajar en un hospital.
«Es muy importante para nosotras, porque así estás dándoles voz [a] las mujeres. La mayoría de estas mujeres provienen de una sociedad muy oprimida y conservadora», explica Ayub.
Llegó a haber 11 personas de la emisora en Siria, más las que trabajaban desde fuera. Hoy, sin embargo, solo queda un miembro del equipo en el país: muchos de ellos acabaron en la cárcel antes de marcharse de Siria, algunos por oponerse al gobierno y otros por enviar ayuda. La mayoría de los que no fueron arrestados, como Kalayi, que vive en Berlín desde 2013, abandonaron el país. Ayub describe SouriaLi como «un medio exiliado porque, por el momento, estamos en el exilio».
El equipo ahora suma 27 miembros, voluntarios incluidos, que trabajan desde 14 países distintos de Oriente Medio, Europa y Norteamérica.
La labor de reafirmar la diversidad de Siria supone facilitar el acceso a las ondas a todas las voces del grupo, ya sean kurdas, suníes, chiíes, alauíes, armenias, cristianas o de otro tipo. Kalayi produjo una serie titulada Fatush, en la que tomaba recetas típicas de las diferentes regiones y grupos de Siria y hablaba sobre identidad étnica y problemas a menudo ignorados, mano a mano con la gastronomía.
SouriaLi trata de incluir una variedad de perspectivas, aunque las figuras prorrégimen raras veces aceptan la invitación. Pese a todo, la emisora ofrece la oportunidad de expresarse a todos los puntos de vista. «Creemos firmemente que los medios de comunicación, como una emisora de radio, una plataforma, deberían ser para todos los sirios», afirma Ayub.
Sus emisiones atraen a un público numeroso: tienen más de 450.000 seguidores en Facebook. La emisora solía emitir en FM en 12 zonas de Siria, en las que compañeros locales se encargaban de la transmisión. Sin embargo, el régimen de Assad siempre prohibía la emisión en las regiones que caían bajo su dominio, y diferentes grupos de combate de la oposición, como Yabhat al Nusra (entonces vinculado con Al Qaeda, hoy rebautizado como Yabhat Fateh al Sham), han tratado de controlar el contenido de SouriaLi. Exigían, por ejemplo, que dejasen de emitir ciertos programas y música, como el contenido kurdo, o los obligaban a emitir el Corán. La emisora también recibió amenazas del Estado Islámico.
SouriaLi se negó a recibir órdenes del gobierno o de sus oponentes, y puso fin a su transmisión en FM a mediados de 2016. «Así que decidimos dejarlo», relata Ayub. «Dijimos: “Siria ya no es [solo] Siria de la frontera adentro. Siria es todos los sirios de cualquier lugar.” Tenemos millones de sirios fuera, en Europa. Todos necesitan la esperanza, la información que estamos emitiendo, así que recalibramos nuestro centro atención».
La emisora de radio pasó a ser solo en línea. Su página web está disponible para la población siria, tanto en los lugares donde no hay censura como a través de VPN. También hay una versión pensada para evitar la censura que solo incluye la emisión de radio en directo.
Kalas, que abandonó Siria por Francia en 2012, cuenta que ahora la emisora podría pasar a estar solo en internet, pues «Siria es un país virtual» con oyentes repartidos por todos los puntos del globo. SouriaLi calcula que alrededor del 40% de su audiencia online está ubicada en Siria, otro 40% lo forma su diáspora y otro 18% son oyentes de habla árabe, principalmente de Irak y Egipto.
Mantener la moral alta es uno de los mayores retos a los que se enfrenta el equipo, según Kalas y Ayub. «Antes de 2011 no había realmente “medios” o “periodismo” en Siria», apunta Kalayi. Ahora, se siente optimista. «Tengo libertad para elegir los temas, cómo tratarlos, cómo presentarlos. Y esto es algo muy importante para mí como persona y como periodista». Y cuando las condiciones lo permitan, quiere volver a Siria y seguir haciendo eso mismo.
Ayub añade: «Yo creo que a un país [como] Siria le hacen falta miles y miles de proyectos de comunicación, muchas plataformas para que la gente se exprese, para debatir. Porque, sin debate, sin libertad de expresión, nunca existirá un país libre. Y esto, por supuesto, es aplicable a Siria también».
Rhodri Davieses periodista independiente. Ha escrito reportajes desde Catar, Egipto, Irak y Yemen.
Este artículo fue publicado en la revista Index on Censorship en otoño de 2017.
Traducción de Arrate Hidalgo.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
29 Aug 2018 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”95198″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]For the second time since 2013, the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has issued an Opinion regarding the legality of the detention of Mr. Nabeel Rajab under international human rights law.
In its second opinion, the WGAD held that the detention was not only arbitrary but also discriminatory. The 127 signatory human rights groups welcome this landmark opinion, made public on 13 August 2018, recognising the role played by human rights defenders in society and the need to protect them. We call upon the Bahraini Government to immediately release Nabeel Rajab in accordance with this latest request.
In its Opinion (A/HRC/WGAD/2018/13), the WGAD considered that the detention of Mr. Nabeel Rajabcontravenes Articles 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Articles 2, 9, 10, 14, 18, 19 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Bahrain in 2006. The WGAD requested the Government of Bahrain to “release Mr. Rajab immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.”
This constitutes a landmark opinion as it recognises that the detention of Mr. Nabeel Rajab – President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), Deputy Secretary General of FIDH and a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Advisory Committee – is arbitrary and in violation of international law, as it results from his exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression as well as freedom of thought and conscience, and furthermore constitutes “discrimination based on political or other opinion, as well as on his status as a human rights defender.” Mr. Nabeel Rajab’s detention has therefore been found arbitrary under both categories II and V as defined by the WGAD.
Mr. Nabeel Rajab was arrested on 13 June 2016 and has been detained since then by the Bahraini authorities on several freedom of expression-related charges that inherently violate his basic human rights. On 15 January 2018, the Court of Cassation upheld his two-year prison sentence, convicting him of “spreading false news and rumors about the internal situation in the Kingdom, which undermines state prestige and status” – in reference to television interviews he gave in 2015 and 2016. Most recently on 5 June 2018, the Manama Appeals Court upheld his five years’ imprisonment sentence for “disseminating false rumors in time of war”; “offending a foreign country” – in this case Saudi Arabia; and for “insulting a statutory body”, in reference to comments made on Twitter in March 2015 regarding alleged torture in Jaw prison and criticising the killing of civilians in the Yemen conflict by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition. The Twitter case will next be heard by the Court of Cassation, the final opportunity for the authorities to acquit him.
The WGAD underlined that “the penalisation of a media outlet, publishers or journalists solely for being critical of the government or the political social system espoused by the government can never be considered to be a necessary restriction of freedom of expression,” and emphasised that “no such trial of Mr. Rajab should have taken place or take place in the future.” It added that the WGAD “cannot help but notice that Mr. Rajab’s political views and convictions are clearly at the centre of the present case and that the authorities have displayed an attitude towards him that can only be characterised as discriminatory.” The WGAD added that several cases concerning Bahrain had already been brought before it in the past five years, in which WGAD “has found the Government to be in violation of its human rights obligations.” WGAD added that “under certain circumstances, widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of the rules of international law may constitute crimes against humanity.”
Indeed, the list of those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression and opinion in Bahrain is long and includes several prominent human rights defenders, notably Mr. Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Dr.Abduljalil Al-Singace and Mr. Naji Fateel – whom the WGAD previously mentioned in communications to the Bahraini authorities.
Our organisations recall that this is the second time the WGAD has issued an Opinion regarding Mr. Nabeel Rajab. In its Opinion A/HRC/WGAD/2013/12adopted in December 2013, the WGAD already classified Mr. Nabeel Rajab’s detention as arbitrary as it resulted from his exercise of his universally recognised human rights and because his right to a fair trial had not been guaranteed (arbitrary detention under categories II and III as defined by the WGAD).The fact that over four years have passed since that opinion was issued, with no remedial action and while Bahrain has continued to open new prosecutions against him and others, punishing expression of critical views, demonstrates the government’s pattern of disdain for international human rights bodies.
To conclude, our organisations urge the Bahrain authorities to follow up on the WGAD’s request to conduct a country visit to Bahrain and to respect the WGAD’s opinion, by immediately and unconditionally releasing Mr. Nabeel Rajab, and dropping all charges against him. In addition, we urge the authorities to release all other human rights defenders arbitrarily detained in Bahrain and to guarantee in all circumstances their physical and psychological health.
This statement is endorsed by the following organisations:
1- ACAT Germany – Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture
2- ACAT Luxembourg
3- Access Now
4- Acción Ecológica (Ecuador)
5- Americans for Human Rights and Democracy in Bahrain – ADHRB
6- Amman Center for Human Rights Studies – ACHRS (Jordania)
7- Amnesty International
8- Anti-Discrimination Center « Memorial » (Russia)
9- Arabic Network for Human Rights Information – ANHRI (Egypt)
10- Arab Penal Reform Organisation (Egypt)
11- Armanshahr / OPEN Asia (Afghanistan)
12- ARTICLE 19
13- Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos – APRODEH (Peru)
14- Association for Defense of Human Rights – ADHR
15- Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression – AFTE (Egypt)
16- Association marocaine des droits humains – AMDH
17- Bahrain Center for Human Rights
18- Bahrain Forum for Human Rights
19- Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy – BIRD
20- Bahrain Interfaith
21- Cairo Institute for Human Rights – CIHRS
22- CARAM Asia (Malaysia)
23- Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)
24- Center for Constitutional Rights (USA)
25- Center for Prisoners’ Rights (Japan)
26- Centre libanais pour les droits humains – CLDH
27- Centro de Capacitación Social de Panama
28- Centro de Derechos y Desarrollo – CEDAL (Peru)
29- Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales – CELS (Argentina)
30- Centro de Políticas Públicas y Derechos Humanos – Perú EQUIDAD
31- Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos – CENIDH (Nicaragua)
32- Centro para la Acción Legal en Derechos Humanos – CALDH (Guatemala)
33- Citizen Watch (Russia)
34- CIVICUS : World Alliance for Citizen Participation
35- Civil Society Institute – CSI (Armenia)
36- Colectivo de Abogados « José Alvear Restrepo » (Colombia)
37- Collectif des familles de disparu(e)s en Algérie – CFDA
38- Comisión de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador – CDHES
39- Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos Humanos – CEDHU (Ecuador)
40- Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (Costa Rica)
41- Comité de Acción Jurídica – CAJ (Argentina)
42- Comité Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos – CPDH (Colombia)
43- Committee for the Respect of Liberties and Human Rights in Tunisia – CRLDHT
44- Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative – CHRI (India)
45- Corporación de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos del Pueblo – CODEPU (Chile)
46- Dutch League for Human Rights – LvRM
47- European Center for Democracy and Human Rights – ECDHR (Bahrain)
48- FEMED – Fédération euro-méditerranéenne contre les disparitions forcées
49- FIDH, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
50- Finnish League for Human Rights
51- Foundation for Human Rights Initiative – FHRI (Uganda)
52- Front Line Defenders
53- Fundación Regional de Asesoría en Derechos Humanos – INREDH (Ecuador)
54- Groupe LOTUS (DRC)
55- Gulf Center for Human Rights
56- Human Rights Association – IHD (Turkey)
57- Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners (Egypt)
58- Human Rights Center – HRIDC (Georgia)
59- Human Rights Center « Memorial » (Russia)
60- Human Rights Center « Viasna » (Belarus)
61- Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
62- Human Rights Foundation of Turkey
63- Human Rights in China
64- Human Rights Mouvement « Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan »
65- Human Rights Sentinel (Ireland)
66- Human Rights Watch
67- I’lam – Arab Center for Media Freedom, Development and Research
68- IFEX
69- IFoX Turkey – Initiative for Freedom of Expression
70- Index on Censorship
71- International Human Rights Organisation « Club des coeurs ardents » (Uzbekistan)
72- International Legal Initiative – ILI (Kazakhstan)
73- Internet Law Reform Dialogue – iLaw (Thaïland)
74- Institut Alternatives et Initiatives Citoyennes pour la Gouvernance Démocratique – I-AICGD (RDC)
75- Instituto Latinoamericano para una Sociedad y Derecho Alternativos – ILSA (Colombia)
76- Internationale Liga für Menschenrechte (Allemagne)
77- International Service for Human Rights – ISHR
78- Iraqi Al-Amal Association
79- Jousor Yemen Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response
80- Justice for Iran
81- Justiça Global (Brasil)
82- Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law
83- Latvian Human Rights Committee
84- Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
85- League for the Defense of Human Rights in Iran
86- League for the Defense of Human Rights – LADO Romania
87- Legal Clinic « Adilet » (Kyrgyzstan)
88- Liga lidských práv (Czech Republic)
89- Ligue burundaise des droits de l’Homme – ITEKA (Burundi)
90- Ligue des droits de l’Homme (Belgique)
91- Ligue ivoirienne des droits de l’Homme
92- Ligue sénégalaise des droits humains – LSDH
93- Ligue tchadienne des droits de l’Homme – LTDH
94- Ligue tunisienne des droits de l’Homme – LTDH
95- MADA – Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom
96- Maharat Foundation (Lebanon)
97- Maison des droits de l’Homme du Cameroun – MDHC
98- Maldivian Democracy Network
99- MARCH Lebanon
100- Media Association for Peace – MAP (Lebanon)
101- MENA Monitoring Group
102- Metro Center for Defending Journalists’ Rights (Iraqi Kurdistan)
103- Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers – International Association of People’s Lawyers
104- Movimento Nacional de Direitos Humanos – MNDH (Brasil)
105- Mwatana Organisation for Human Rights (Yemen)
106- Norwegian PEN
107- Odhikar (Bangladesh)
108- Pakistan Press Foundation
109- PEN America
110- PEN Canada
111- PEN International
112- Promo-LEX (Moldova)
113- Public Foundation – Human Rights Center « Kylym Shamy » (Kyrgyzstan)
114- RAFTO Foundation for Human Rights
115- Réseau Doustourna (Tunisia)
116- SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights
117- Scholars at Risk
118- Sisters’ Arab Forum for Human Rights – SAF (Yemen)
119- Suara Rakyat Malaysia – SUARAM
120- Taïwan Association for Human Rights – TAHR
121- Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights – FTDES
122- Vietnam Committee for Human Rights
123- Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
124- World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers – WAN-IFRA
125- World Organisation Against Torture – OMCT, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
126- Yemen Organisation for Defending Rights and Democratic Freedoms
127- Zambia Council for Social Development – ZCSD[/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:1535551119543-359a0849-e6f7-3″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
8 Aug 2018 | News and features, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”102049″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]When Turkish forces attacked Kurdish villages in the southeast of the country in 2016 after the collapse of a ceasefire between Ankara and the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in July 2015, journalist Nurcan Baysal was there to document the human rights violations. The state declared military curfews, cut off electricity and water supplies and then began bombing civilians in their homes.
“The Turkish media say only terrorists were killed in the basements of Cizre, but 54 of them were students from Turkish universities who went there just to show solidarity and tell the Kurdish people ‘we are with you’,” Baysal tells Index on Censorship. “The security forces burnt them alive — they didn’t want them to return.”
Among the dead were Kurdish fighters, but also journalists and civilians, including children. “With the shooting and bombing, it became too dangerous for people to go outside. Some old people died because they didn’t have enough food.”
Baysal, a Kurdish human rights activist and journalist from the Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakir, says it was too dangerous even to retrieve those killed from the streets. The children of one dead woman tried in vain to keep dogs from her body by throwing rocks.
“People say things in Turkey are bad, and they are right, but they think it’s the same situation all over the country,” Baysal says. “In the southeast, we aren’t just talking about journalists being locked up. Right now in one area, there are 50 dead bodies still on the ground; they are being eaten by animals.”
Baysal’s political awakening came in July 1991 when the tortured body of her neighbour, Vedat Aydin, a prominent human right activist and politician, was found under a bridge after he was been taken into police custody. She then began her career working for the UN Development Programme where she focused on poverty and strengthening women’s organisations in Diyarbakir. During this time she established a number of NGOs focusing on the forced migration of the Kurdish people. Her experience saw her take up an advisory role in the Northern Irish peace process in the late 1990s.
Baysal was back in Ireland in May 2018 to collect an award from the Irish human rights organisation Front Line Defenders, who named her its Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk for 2018.
(Photo: Jason Clarke for Front Line Defenders)
“There was a lot of coverage in the Irish papers, which is good because you don’t tend to read much coverage of Kurdish issues elsewhere,” she says. “The international community does not pay attention to the violence against the Kurdish people. The international community is indifferent.”
In March 2013 a new peace process began, but by May 2013 Baysal began to see an increase in village guards, paramilitaries hired by the Turkish government to oversee the inhabitants, in half of the areas she works in. “In those villages we were trying to implement a development programme, but I could see something was wrong and I knew what that meant for peace.”
For her work covering what she says aren’t just ordinary human rights violations, but war crimes in Turkey’s southeast, Baysal has endured threats, intimidation, travel bans and worse. Legal cases have been taken against her, two of which have gone to court. “One of these was for reporting on what I witnessed in Cizre, such as the used condoms left by Turkish soldiers which show the horrible things they did there,” she says. “There were other journalists there but they decided not to write about it, and the Turkish media has closed their eyes, so I knew what I had to.”
Her work was on this issue was censored. “In Turkey there is usually a process if you want to censor something, but in this case there was no process, they just did it,” she says.
The court case lasted two years, at the end of which she was given a ten-month prison sentence — one she wouldn’t serve as long as she didn’t re-offend — for “humiliating Turkish security services” with her article and accompanying photographs. She told the judge that she has even worse photographs that she didn’t publish out of respect for the victims.
When Turkey began its military incursion, code-named Operation Olive Branch, into Afrin, Syria, which was under the control of Kurdish YPG forces, in January 2018, Baysal criticised the Turkish government and called for peace in a series of five tweets. Then, on Sunday 21 January 2018, while she was watching a film with her children at her Diyarbakir home, she heard a noise that she couldn’t understand at first. “It took me a moment to realise the noise was coming from my door,” she says. “They tried to break it down, but it was so strong that the wall around it crumbled and in came a 20-man special operations team with masks and Kalashnikovs. I don’t know what they were planning to find in my home, but when they did this they were sending a message and a lot of other people got scared.”
Baysal spent three nights in prison before being bailed following a series of protests, not just locally, but internationally. Three hundred supporters gathered outside the detention centre, she received the support of Kurdish MPs and her case was raised in the European Parliament.
Baysal now awaits trial on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity among the population”. If convicted, she faces up to three years in jail.
A lot of Turkish newspapers now refer to Baysal as a terrorist, she explains. “The word ‘terrorist’ is used so much that right now half the country are terrorists. Academics for Peace? Terrorists. Students? Terrorists. Doctors? Terrorists. Those who use the word ‘peace’? Terrorists.”
“Kurdish society is a colonised society. Two Kurdish wedding singers were put in prison because they were singing Kurdish songs. A student has been imprisoned for whistling in Kurdish. I really don’t know what it means to whistle in Kurdish,” she laughs.
Baysal explains how in many Kurdish areas, Kurdish mayors have been imprisoned, only to be replaced by government-appointed administrators. In one part of Diyarbakir, Kurds had planted flowers in yellow, red and green, the colours of the Kurdish flag. “One day we woke up and they had taken the heads off all the flowers. Why? The administrators said ‘these are the colours of the PKK’.”
In the November 2015 general election in Turkey, the leftist pro-Kurdish HDP surpassed the 10% threshold necessary to win seats in the new parliament. The effect on the peace process was immediate. The Turkish government saw the process as benefitting only the Kurdish parties, not themselves, Baysal says. “If you ask them now, they will say there is peace, and they are only fighting the PKK, but in their eyes you are PKK if you speak in Kurdish.”
Over the last three years, all Kurdish street signs have been replaced with Turkish ones. “They say ‘those Kurdish signs are PKK’,” Baysal explains. And what about Kurdish media? “Well, we don’t have Kurdish media anymore either, they’ve all been closed.”
Various neighbourhoods in the Sur district of Diyarbakır have been demolished as part of an “urban regeneration programme”
Turkey’s Kurds have known war for a long time, but this time it is different. Rather than fighting in the mountains, war has now been brought into the cities. Since 2015, Turkish forces have demolished entire Kurdish towns and cities. “This is what happened in Sur, which today it is a flattened area,” Baysal says. “Sur is a city that’s 7,000 years old. It’s part of the history of humanity, not just the history of Kurdish people. The story of Armenians, Assyrians — and it’s been ruined.”
Tens of thousands of Kurds have been made homeless by this destruction, with many making their way to other Kurdish towns and cities, while others have set up camp in tents along roads.
In the 1990s, Kurdish people felt that even though they were at war there was always hope, Baysal explains. “With the peace process there was always the belief that things would get better, but today we don’t have hope — no hope at all in the Turkish state.”
“Having seen what has happened in the last three years and how cruel this state can be, I really don’t know what will happen in the future. Everything is unclear. We don’t know tomorrow or even tomorrow morning. This is how we live now.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to tell the stories of censored Turkish writers, artists, translators and human rights defenders.
Learn more about Turkey Uncensored.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Media freedom violations in Turkey reported to and verified by Mapping Media Freedom since May 2014
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20 Jul 2018 | Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
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İdris Sayılgan’s father Ramazan, mother Sebiha and sisters Tuğba and İrem pose in the meadow where the family comes the summers to breed their cattle (Credit: Özgün Özçer)
“Don’t forget to take pills for nausea,” says İdris Sayılgan’s younger sister, Tuğba, combining her knowledge as a fifth-year pharmacy student and the innate kindness of a host. Together with a colleague, we were about to take the bumpy road to follow in the jailed Kurdish journalist’s footsteps to his family’s village near the eastern Turkish city of Muş. Sayılgan had spent his summer holidays helping his father, a herdsman or “koçer” in Kurdish (literally meaning “nomad”), breeding cattle and goats. One of many Kurdish reporters imprisoned pending trial, Sayılgan has been behind bars for 21 months on trumped-up charges that have criminalised his journalistic work. His hard-working, close-knit family misses his presence dearly.
Heading south of Muş, to the fertile Zoveser mountains, the serpentine road proves Tuğba’s advice to be valuable. The asphalt pavement gives way to a narrow gravel road as we continue to zig-zag toward the southern flank of Zoveser, bordering Kulp in Diyarbakır province and Sason in Batman – two localities which used to be home to an important Armenian community before the Armenian Genocide in 1915. The many majestic walnut trees surrounding the road are a testament to that bygone era. We are told that they were all planted by Armenians before they fled.
The family village – Heteng to Kurds and İnardi to the Turkish state – witnessed another brutal eviction in more recent times. During the so-called dirty war of the 1990s, the Turkish military gave inhabitants a stark choice: either become village guards, armed and remunerated by the state to inform on the activities of militants belonging to the Kurdish insurrection, or leave. If they dared to refuse, a summary death awaited. İdris was just three-years-old when they came.
Left helpless and scared, many left. The family of Çağdaş Erdoğan, the Turkish photographer hotlisted by the British Journal of Photography who recently spent six months in prison on terror-related charges, was among them. Erdoğan scarcely remembers his childhood before his family moved to the western industrial city of Bursa. As a child, the painfully forced exile produced nightmares. He started imagining stories from patches of memories, believing they were real. Zoveser’s idyllic setting is haunted by the ghosts of a dark history brimming with atrocities.
The family guides the cattle to the pasture. (Credit: Özgün Özçer)
As for İdris’ family, they have stayed in the Muş ever since, coming back only for breeding season. İdris used to accompany his father in guiding their cattle, during which time they would cover the 70 kilometres separating their farm near Muş to Heteng in three days. It’s a distance that we could only cover in two-and-a-half hours by vehicle. Once in Heteng, there’s still another 15 minutes on foot to the small meadow where the Sayılgans have set up camp next to a fresh stream.
İdris’ father, Ramazan Sayılgan, greets us with a warm embrace. He has a gentle look with soft and tired eyes. “Are you hungry?” he asks as we are invited to their tent. His wife, Sebiha, brings us milk and fresh kaymak cheese, a cream obtained from yoghurt, that she made herself, as well as milk. All of the children help the family during the breeding season. Ramazan can’t hide his pride when he recounts how well they are doing in their studies and how gifted they are. Unlike many parents in the region, he strived to send his nine children to school despite his meagre income. The nine brothers and sisters are close and often go the extra mile for each other.
İdris is the very picture of his father who, although sunburnt, is a little bit darker than him. He inherited the whiteness of his skin from his mother, whom he calls “the most beautiful woman on earth.” With them are the five youngest of the family. Involving herself in the conversation, eight-year-old Hivda sadly notices that she is the only one with olive skin, like her father. Ramazan Sayılgan is quick to comfort her. “You may be darker but you are such a beautiful, dark-skinned girl.” Hivda giggles cheerfully.
They work together and laugh together, but they also suffer together – like that fateful day when the police came for İdris.
A rifle to the head
It was early in the morning on 17 October, 2016, long before sunrise. The whole house was soundly asleep when their door was broken and ten riot police stormed inside.
“They were screaming ‘police, police!’ I told them: ‘Please be quiet, there is nothing in our house,’” Ramazan Sayılgan says, occasionally mixing Kurdish with his broken Turkish. “I was trying to calm them down and avoid trouble. Then I raised my head and saw that five people were on İdris. That’s when they kicked me in the head.”
İdris Sayılgan’s eight-year-old sister Hivda and 12-year-old Yunus. The family guides the cattle to the pasture. (Credit: Özgün Özçer)
İdris tried to escape their clutches but fell to the floor. Police kicked him repeatedly while threatening him. The blows had left him bleeding. “They are killing İdris!” cried his sister İrem, who was 12 at the time. Police told the family to lie on the ground with their hands on their backs. They pointed a rifle at Ramazan and one of the journalist’s younger brothers, Yunus. “They even pointed two rifles at my head. They have no shame,” Yunus, who was ten-years-old at the time of the raid, says.
Normally, all raids should be filmed as a means of preventing abuse. “But they only started filming after they inflicted their brutality,” Ramazansays. Those who inflicted the beatings have enjoyed complete impunity. The family even saw the commander, a bald officer, when they went to vote during Turkey’s recent presidential elections.
In a written defence submitted to the court, İdris said that when he was brought to the hospital for a mandatory medical examination, doctors effectively turned a blind eye to police brutality by refusing to treat his injuries out of fear of repercussions from the police. To add insult to some very real injuries, İdris was transferred to a prison in Trabzon, some 500 kilometres north on the Black Sea coast, even though there is a prison in Muş. The family, who cannot afford a car, can only visit İdris on rare occasions. İdris was subjected to torture and strip searches after being transferred to Trabzon, where he is held in solitary confinement. “What I have been through is enough to prove that my detention is politically motivated,” the journalist has said in his defence statements.
“Journalism changed him”
After high school, İdris decided to abruptly end his studies and began working as a dishwasher. That, however, only lasted three months before he announced to his father that he wanted to prepare for the national university exams. “When he sets his mind on something, he always tries to do his best. He never puts it off. Nothing feels like it’s too much work for him,” his father tells us. “He didn’t study at first, but when he decided to do so, he devoted himself.”
İdris graduated from the journalism department at the Communication Faculty at the University of Mersin. He then returned to Muş and started to work for the pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), which today operates under the name Mezopotamya Agency after DİHA was shuttered in 2016, and another iteration, Dihaber, in 2017, both on terror-related allegations. İdris was making a name for himself when he was arrested and now faces between seven-and-a-half and 15 years in prison on the charge of “membership in a terrorist organisation”.
“University and journalism changed him,” 18-year-old İsmail says. “He used to be more irritable. He has been much more cheerful since,” says İsmail, who picked up on his brother’s habit of whistling whenever he comes home. “İdris was even whistling in custody – to the extent that the police asked, ‘How can you remain so upbeat?’”
Sebihan Sayılgan, İdris’ mother, who he calls “the most beautiful woman on earth”. (Credit: Özgün Özçer)
Tuğba remembers endless conversations at nights when İdris would recite poems by Ahmed Arif, a poet from Diyarbakır who was partly Kurdish. Yunus, meanwhile, complains that he only received İdris’ latest letter a full six weeks after it was sent. As for little Hivda, she whispers to us that she just sent him a poem she wrote.
Ramazan adds that İdris is loved by everyone who knows him. At 58, Ramazan continues to work hard but the family faces many adversities. Another son, 21-year-old Mehmet, has also been behind bars for two years. The eldest brother, Ebubekir, who became a math teacher, has been dismissed from the civil service for being a member of the progressive teachers’ union Eğitim-Sen. Ebubekir was well-known for improving the grades of all the students in his classes, but now that he has been forced out of his job, he has gone to Istanbul in an attempt to make ends meet. He will join them a week later to help them during the breeding season.
Since the state of emergency was imposed two years ago, village guards have become ever more self-assured. Like sheriffs in the wild west, they make their own rules. The Sayılgan family, who couldn’t come to the village for two years out of fear following the declaration of a state of emergency, alerts us that village guards often tip off authorities when they see strangers. “The driver of the shuttle is also a village guard,” we are warned. Indeed, we had already introduced ourselves to him as İdris’ friends from university, omitting to reveal our profession. During our trip back, we would tell him of our plans to catch a bus to Van when our real intention was to go north to Varto instead.
İdris Sayılgan’s 18-year-old İsmail who guided us to the meadow, with Hivda and Yunus in the background. (Credit: Özgün Özçer)
Unlike most Kurdish provinces, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), well supported by the conservative voters, won the municipality of Muş in local elections, meaning the government hasn’t appointed trustees to force out elected Kurdish mayors as it has done in other Kurdish areas where it has lost. Police, accordingly, are extremely comfortable. The city abounds with plainclothes police and informants. No precaution is too little. Varto, a town with a majority of Alevis – who are a dissident religious minority with liberal and progressive beliefs – looks like a safer option to spend the night.
I get a sense of how hard it must be for a local Kurdish reporter to work in Muş. It means working behind the adversary’s lines while still living in one’s hometown. It also means never letting your guard down.
We take leave from the family, expressing our hope that İdris will be released at his next hearing on 5 October. “In three months and two days,” his father quickly notes. October will mark two years without his son – two years that a modest but resilient family has endeavoured to fight against state-sponsored injustice with goodwill and affection.
İdris Sayılgan’s father Ramazan, mother Sebiha and sisters Tuğba and İrem pose next to the tent where the family stays. (Credit: Özgün Özçer)
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