In Solidarity with Arrested Writer Zarakolu

Turkish and international defenders of freedom of expression came together in Ankara on Saturday (26 February) to demonstrate their solidarity with detained writer and publisher Ragıp Zarakolu. The Ankara Initiative for Freedom of Thought and the "Friends of Belge" group organized an evening reception at the Ankara Arts Theatre.

Zarkolu is the founder of the Belge Publishing Company that has been at loggerheads with the judiciary several times in the past. He was arrested on 31 October in the course of an operation related to the Union of Kurdish Communities (KCK), an organization founded by Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PPK).

The event was hosted by poet and photographer Mehmet Özer who was himself in police custody and later on released this February. Journalist Doğan Özgüden showed a movie about Zarakolu and the bands Bandista and Kaldırım performed on stage.

Lecturer Dr. Sibel Özbudun said in her opening speech that solidarity would overcome these difficult days.

"The Tekel workers left us a slogan when they passed through Ankara: 'We are the people, we will win'. Yes, we are the people and we are going to win".

Beşikçi: The topics of Belge publications...

Sociologist İsmail Beşikçi said, "I want to talk briefly about the line of publication of Ayşe and Ragıp Zarakolu. Turkey was founded on the destruction of the Near East. What was there in the Near East at that time? There was the Pontus, Armenia, Lazistan, Cilicia and Kurdistan. Turkey was founded on the genocide of these countries and peoples", the sociologist claimed.

Beşikçi noted that both universities and the press never had had any interest in the official history. Belge Publishing on the other hand tackled these issues and drew the public' attention to this section of history, the sociologist noted.

Başkaya: Just the names and numbers change

Writer and academic Fikret Başkaya questioned, "Why are they killing people? Why are they giving bans? Why are they leaving people unemployed? - Because ideas become a concrete force when they are being put out to the masses. So, where do the ruling classes step in? At the point where the ideas reach the public".

"Does nothing change? They change the institutions and also the number of laws... Articles 141 and 142 manifest the shape of the Anti-Terror Law. State Security Courts (DGM) become Special Authority Courts".

Tuncel: Ragıp is not sad

Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Istanbul Deputy Sebahat Tuncel talked about her visit to Zarakolu in prison.

"He came from a volleyball game. He said to me 'I am gaining one more interesting experience here. There are people who stayed in prison for 20 years and they are so cheerful and in good spirits so I am starting a new life here, a new period. In that aspect, I am not sad at all'".

Solidarity messages from abroad

William Nyegaard from the Freedom to Publish Committee of the Norwegian Publishers Association sent a message since he was not able to attend the event in person. He expressed the committee's solidarity with Zarakolu and with the values and mission he represented.

"It is our wish and our opinion that Ragıp Zarakolu has to be together with his books again as soon as possible and that the obstacles before this have to be removed immediately".

Eugene Schoulgin, General Secretary of PEN International, also sent a message to the meeting. She said that Ragıp Zarakolu was one of the honourable names on the intellectual scene and that his imprisonment was a shame for those who put him behind bars.

The event was also attended by journalist and academic Baskın Oran, Kurdish politician Akın Birdal and Öztürk Türkdoğan, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation (İHD). (SH/HK)