‘I am put on trial again over the hunger strike I was penalized before’

Click to read the article in Turkish

Arrested for nearly a year now, discharged academic Nuriye Gülmen has sent a letter to bianet ahead of her third hearing.

Taken into custody in a police operation against the İdil Cultural Center of Grup Yorum music band in İstanbul on August 5, 2020, Gülmen was arrested after being held in detention for seven days. She is now arrested pending trial at the Silivri No. 9 Prison at the outskirts of İstanbul.

The third hearing of her trial will be held at the İstanbul 28th Heavy Penal Court in İstanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan on June 10, 2021.

'Trial aims to end the resistance'

Starting her letter by saying that she is fine, Gülmen says that the problem is the injustice that they face, rather than being behind bars:

"A disciplined life, producing, following the recent developments, reading, writing... This is how the days are passing. As Yılmaz Güney makes a character say in his film 'Father', 'I haven't seen an unending imprisonment.' Imprisonment ends, if there was not this 'being subjected to injustice.'

"Being unjustly deprived of your freedom is horrible. If they give me the whole world for a single day that I spent behind bars, they still cannot pay the price for it. I am angry not only because of what I have gone through. The health, youth and life of so many people are stolen with unfair trials...

"As part of over 20 files against me, I am facing dozens of years in prison. They want to make me pay the price for being the person who pioneered the struggle of 'We Want Our Jobs Back.'

"The hunger strike that I staged together with my fellow teacher Semih Özakça in 2017 to get back to my work has been once again made the subject of a court case in my current trial, which is the most clear indication that this is a file of revenge. Because while I was still on hunger strike, I was put on trial and penalized on the same charge.

"I am now being tried on the same charges: Going on a hunger strike and waging a struggle together with the people discharged by Statutory Decrees and all groups who have been subjected to injustice.

"This trial aims to end our 'We Want Our Jobs Back' resistance that has been going on for 4.5 years despite all types of attacks.

"When we were detained in August 2020, our resistance had been ongoing for nearly 4 years and there were attempts to end it with all types of unlawful and illegitimate ways and methods everyday. Detentions (over two thousand times); torture (Nazan Bozkurt's suborbital bone, my nose and leg were broken. A pacemaker was implanted in Acun Karadağ's heart, Mehmet Dersulu had his foot fractured); fines (the fines imposed on the people who joined the resistance during the resistance topped 1 million lira in total); unfair trials (there are dozens of cases filed against all of us) were instrumentalized to end a rightful resistance.

"When all these were not enough, a new political operation was carried out. The aim was to end the resistance and to punish and intimidate us.

'I had my leg broken, but I was fined'

"They arrested me due to flight risk and they are still keeping me behind bars on the same suspicion. In fact, I have never run away.

"I have always 'been here' despite dozens of court cases filed against me and a upheld prison sentence of six years and three months. I have not given up my demand of 'I want my job back.' Wherever there was a resistance, wherever there was injustice, I tried to be there.

"If I prefered 'going away' due to unjust punishments in this environment of injustice, it would still not be called 'running away'. But I have not gone anywhere. The reason is that I stayed and continued struggling and my belief that one needs to stand up against injustice.

"Since I was arrested, two new files have been issued against me and I have been penalized in two trials.

"In one of the trials where I have been penalized, Mehmet Dersulu and I were taken into custody in Bodrum, where we had been together, and my leg was broken while we were in detention. My criminal complaint ended in non-prosecution even though the broken bone in my leg was confirmed by medical reports. In the lawsuit filed against me and Teacher Mehmet on the grounds that we insulted the police (and against Mehmet Dersulu also on the grounds that he resisted the police), we were given judicial fines. The fine imposed on me is 11,300 Turkish Lira (TRY).

"The other fine has been imposed due to my post where I stated that the police officer who had broken Nazan Bozkurt's suborbital bone committed torture. It was concluded that there was no ground for prosecuting the police officer on the grounds that s/he did his/her duty. I have been sentenced to 5,300 TRY judicial fine because I expressed this truth."

Noting that "they have been struggling for bread and justice for four and a half years and they have been arrested as a price for this struggle", Gülmen has made a call to her hearing on June 10. (AS/SD)