‘Apologizing’, Abdullah Demirbas told me in an interview last week, ‘doesn’t weaken you. It makes you stronger.’ We were talking about (what else these days?) the commemoration of the Armenian genocide. Most stories you read about it these days deal with how the Turkish state handles this black page in its history: defiant, in denial, […]
(Bu savunmamdır. Durusma salonunda böyle, Türkçe, okudum, 8 Nisan 2015. Find the English version here!) Sayın savcının son yıllarda yazdığım bazı yazılardan kopyala yapıştır ile aldığı cümleleri gördüğümde, hemen aklıma savunmam için aynı metinlere başvurmayı düşündüm. Örneğin Kürt kimliği üzerine İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi’ndeki bir konferans için yazdığım metinden bazı cümleler var. Van’da röportaj yaptığım, dağa […]
(This is the English version of my defence in the trial against me, read out in Turkish in Diyarbakir court on 8 April 2015.) When I saw the sentences the respected prosecutor had copy-pasted from some of my writings from last year, I immediately wondered if I should draw on these writings in my defence. […]
Türkce burada okuyabilirsiniz ‘He’s going to ask for acquittal’. My lawyer walks over to me from his place in the court room and sits down on the chair next to mine. He whispers it in my ear, while the prosecutor continues his plea. ‘He hasn’t said it yet, but I know it from the way […]
(Turkce burada okuyabilirsini) Infighting in the AKP. I’m sure many people are gloating, less than three months before the elections in which the AKP wants to win enough votes to single-handedly change the constitution. But what does it mean for the (so called) peace process? Especially when you add the possible weakening of Öcalan to […]
Many people have been asking me lately if I think the HDP will cross the 10% election threshold, looking at me with an expectation as if I had some crystal ball. Like everybody else, I haven’t a clue. I also don’t know what will happen if they don’t make the threshold and won’t be in […]
(Türkçe burada okuyabilirsiniz) An intelligence officer in the Turkish army, Milliyet journalist Kemal Göktas revealed on Monday, told his superiors on the evening of the Roboski massacre that the group they were planning to bomb was most likely just villagers and not PKK members. Aygün Eker, who is a colonel now, did get through to […]
Akif Beki has a column in Hürriyet, one of the biggest papers in Turkey. Considering him a ‘pro government columnist’ wouldn’t describe him properly: he is plainly a government writer. To illustrate that qualification: Akif Beki is one of the few Turkish ‘journalists’ who still have access to Tayyip Erdogan’s presidential plane, in other words, who are […]
There we were, some sixty mostly foreign journalists, brought together in a large tent in the newly opened state refugee camp for Syrians. We were listening to the governor of Suruc, Abdullah Ciftci, who was pointing out how wonderful the camp was. I didn’t get all the details of what he was saying, since I […]
Firaqşo. I had to walk to the kitchen to check, but yes, dish washing machine is firaqşo in Kurdish. I check that in the kitchen because I put a note saying ‘firaqşo’ on the machine, but obviously, even after seeing it several times a day, I’m not a hundred percent sure I remembered it right. […]