Dear friends,

I am absolutely thrilled to let you know that news editor, reporter, poet, and honorary PEN member Nedim Türfent has just been released from prison.

Here is our joint statement with MLSA welcoming his long-awaited freedom: https://pen-international.org/news/turkiye-nedim-turfent-released-from-prison

We shared the good news on our social media channels: https://twitter.com/pen_int/status/1597538627621642240

You can also find more pictures on MLSA’s twitter feed: https://twitter.com/mlsaturkey

We will seek to speak with Nedim shortly to see what we can do to best support him now that he is out.

Such a happy day!

Aurélia Dondo| Europe Programme Coordinator | PEN International aurelia.dondo@pen-international.org| www.pen-international.org |

Türkiye: Editor, poet, and honorary PEN member Nedim Türfent released from prison

PEN International and the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) welcome the release of news editor, reporter, and poet Nedim Türfent, who was arrested on 12 May 2016 and subsequently sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison on trumped-up terrorism charges. Türfent spent over 2400 days behind bars. He is an honorary member of English PEN and PEN Melbourne.

‘The PEN Community welcomes the long-awaited release of Nedim Türfent, although he should have never spent a single day in prison. His ordeal is a painful reminder of the difficult situation for freedom of expression in Türkiye and the hefty price writers and journalists are paying merely for speaking out. Today, as we celebrate Türfent’s freedom, we also remember all those still held in Türkiye for peacefully expressing their views. We once again urge the authorities to release them immediately and unconditionally,’ said Ma Thida, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.

‘Exposing an unlawful treatment of civilians should have been awarded a journalism prize, it turned into a seven-year ordeal instead. However, we are proud that Nedim Türfent continued to write and create, showing that his imprisonment, which intended to silence him, did not achieve that end. We know we will continue to see this inspiring courage and we wholeheartedly welcome Nedim back to freedom,’ said Barış Altıntaş, Co-Chair of the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA).

Background information

A news editor and reporter at the now-closed pro-Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DİHA), Nedim Türfent, 32, was detained on 12 May 2016 in Van, South-eastern Türkiye, shortly after reporting on special police forces’ ill-treatment of Kurdish workers. Soon after his video footage was released, Türfent began receiving death threats from the police and was the target of an online harassment campaign. He was formally charged with ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ one day after his arrest; the indictment was first produced 10 months later. He spent almost two years in solitary confinement in harrowing detention conditions.

Among the reasons listed in the indictment were Nedim Türfent’s social media posts, his news reporting and 20 concealed witness testimonies. His first hearing was held in Hakkari on 14 June 2017, some 200 km away from Van where he was being detained. He was denied the right to appear physically in court seven times, and instead testified via the judicial conferencing system SEGBİS, experiencing severe connection and interpretation issues. Out of the 20 witnesses called, 19 retracted their statements, saying they had been extracted under torture. MLSA provided Türfent with legal counsel and notably brought his detention and conviction before the European Court of Human Rights.

While in prison Nedim Türfent wrote ‘Kuş Aynası,’ a collection of poems published in September 2021 in Turkey by Aram Publishing.

PEN International and PEN Centres across the world have actively been campaigning for Nedim Türfent’s release, by notably sending appeals to the authorities, taking part in solidarity actions, and translating and promoting his poetry, amongst other things. In September 2022, the Assembly of Delegates of PEN International adopted a Resolution on the repression of Kurdish language and culture in Türkiye, which notably calls on the authorities to end the prosecution and detention of writers and journalists on the basis of the content of their writing – including in support of Kurdish language and culture – and to immediately release all those held for peacefully expressing their views, including Türfent.

PEN Centres wishing to send him a message should contact Aurélia Dondo, Europe Programme Coordinator: Aurelia.dondo@pen-international.org

For more information about PEN’s campaign for Nedim Türfent please click here.

For further details contact Aurélia Dondo at PEN International, Koops Mill, 162-164 Abbey Street, London, SE1 2AN, UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7405 0338 Fax +44 (0) 20 7405 0339 e-mail: Aurelia.dondo@pen-international.org

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“… in my imagination, I am eyeball to eyeball with each of you…” – Nedim Türfent has been moved to a different prison. You’ll want to read his letter to his PEN friends here at PEN Melbourne

PEN Melbourne honorary member Nedim Türfent has been moved to a different prison. You’ll want to read his letter to his PEN friends here at PEN Melbourne, he is uplifted by this change and

Nedim Türfent

 

 

Excerpt from Nedim’s Open letter to the winds of injustice
Van Prison. 14 April 2021, 1,800th day of imprisonment:

Words fly by in my head. Meanwhile, I can barely put two syllables together. My pen has been becalmed for hours. The ink no longer flows, as if my pen had been weaned . . .

 

I must tell you frankly that had I been told five years ago, ‘you will be held in prison for years, for having practiced alternative journalism,’ I would have moved along and laughed in your face. Never would I have imagined that the Law and our rights could be trampled this badly. Like a shuttle constantly moving backward and forward between acceptance and habituation, we are transformed into this object weaving the net we thought impossible, undoable. And that is the worst of it. Today we accept silently, as if they were ordinary, all these things that, no more than five years ago, would have set fire to the greatest of indignations. We collapse in our armchairs, settle into our echo chambers, and we wish a long life to the snake that does not strike us . . .

 

This pencil is one of the stories on which the vice of persecution tested its teeth. In 2015 in Y¸ksekova, a town smack on the borders of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, Turkish special forces made a group of Kurdish construction workers lie naked on the ground and shouted, ‘You will see the strength of the Turk!’ I relayed this infamy and an inquiry was opened against these policemen. But shortly thereafter, the voice of revenge reached my ears. Attacks using tear gas, rubber bullets, surveillance, aggressions, death threats, then arrest, torture during custody and, finally, on 13 May 2016, incarceration. . . All of the 19 witnesses for the prosecution described torture while in custody . . . one of the witnesses declared: ‘the policemen told me: if you don’t sign this document, we will pull out your teeth with pliers.’

 

Please, consider this open letter as ‘representative’ of situations. In this framework, justice is demanded for all. In solidarity and with the pencil’s resistance, before its lead is broken.

 

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
www.kedistan.net/2021/05/03/nedim-turfent-open-letter-injustice

 

 

Write to Nedim
Van Yüksek Güvenlikli Kapalı Ceza İnfaz Kurumu
A-44 VAN – TURKEY

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June 27, 2021

PEN Melbourne is proud to have Nedim Türfent as our Honorary Member.

We have recently received confirmation from Nedim from his prison in Van, Turkey, and through the broader PEN International network, that he welcomes his membership to PEN Melbourne.

Nedim is a journalist, editor and poet.

He was detained in May 2016 after reporting on Turkish special forces’ ill-treatment of Turkish and Kurdish workers, in south-east Turkey. He published footage of this treatment and immediately began receiving death threats from the police and became the target of online harassment. He was detained in solitary confinement. He was 26 years old. Ten months later he was formally charged with ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’.

In his trial beginning in June 2017, he was denied the right to appear in court physically.  However, 19 of the 20 prosecution witnesses retracted their statements, saying they had been extracted under torture. In December, 2017 he was sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison. This verdict has been upheld twice. But Nedim’s lawyers have appealed further.

While waiting for his appeal, Nedim has been studying, English, German and writing poetry.

He is also a generous writer of letters. During PEN Melbourne’s end- of- year card writing to imprisoned writers in December 2020, many members wrote to Nedim. He has since written cards in return to each writer, in gratitude, and with powerful messages that affirm ‘freedom for words’.

If you would like to join PEN Melbourne’s actions in solidarity with Nedim, please contact us at wip@penmelbourne.org

And join the call for Nedim Türfent’s release on social media – #FreeNedim

One of Nedim’s first poems translated into many languages

Let my heart give life –  Nedim Türfent

Your heart has become the earth
let it give elixir into the veins
bring fertility to the soil
from the springs behind the mountain Qaf.
let the benevolence of the crops
be the silver key to life.
let your heart soothe
the farmer
the peasant
the day laborer
the distressed

let it massage the broken wings of birds
with ointments
let it grant refuge
to the ants, working collectively, in solidarity
let heart fill with generosity
giving butterflies an extra day of life
let it be a lifeline
like the womb   

let your heart be crystal clear
as clear as water
let it give life to the lifeless.

 

Translation by Barış Altıntaş, Media and Law Studies Association (MSLA)

https://pen-international.org/news/let-my-heart-give-life-english

 

 

First published here: https://medyavehukuk.org/en/800-days-behind-bars-nedim-turfent-van-prison

 

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New Honorary Member of PEN Melbourne

PEN Melbourne has nominated imprisoned Kurdish writer Nedim Türfent as an Honorary Member, and we are pleased that Nedim has accepted.