İlhan Çomak videos to be screened in Borders Art Festival in Venice

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Two videos about jailed poet İlhan Çomak will be screened in Borders Festival, an international art fair in Venice, Italy.

Prepared by the Açık Şiir (Open Poem) initiative, the videos will be screened in the festival's "Fragmented Identities" section.

As reported by the Speak Up platform, two videos entitled "The Anatomy of Freedom" and "Not Home Yet?" will be watched as part of "Video Art/Installation" collection of the Fragmented Identities.

The Borders Festival will continue for three months and will be held in three separate parts in Venice, Italy.

Edited and directed by Erkan Karadeniz and featuring İlhan Sami Çomak and Erkut Tokman, videos will be screened from September 3 to October 2.

İpek Özel will attend the festival on behalf of İlhan Sami Çomak and make a speech on September 3. Erkan Karakiraz and Erkut Tokman will also attend the opening ceremony online.

Resisting imprisonment with his poems and optimism for 26 years, İlhan Sami Çomak's works have been translated into English and they are expected to be published in a collection by the publishing house which also publishes the works of John Berger in 2022.

Çomak was previously appointed as PEN Norway's Honorary Member.

About İlhan Sami Çomak

While İlhan Sami Çomak was a student at İstanbul University Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1994, he was arrested on charge of "being a member of an organization." He was sentenced to capital punishment by the State Security Court in 2000, his punishment was converted into life imprisonment.

As the Court of Cassation upheld his verdict, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which concluded that "he had not been fairly tried." He stood trial again and was given the same sentence in 2013. The Court of Cassation upheld his verdict for the second time.

The first judgement against him was given based on a statement that he made under torture. His retrial following the ECtHR verdict started years later in 2013 and the requests for his release pending trial were not accepted neither during nor after this process. The Constitutional Court rejected his request for release pending trial on October 28, 2015.

The second verdict of life sentence given by the İstanbul 4th Heavy Penal Court was also upheld by the 16th Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation. (AÖ/SD)