I Guess I Had More to Say

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So much has happened in the past two days that I really just had to update everyone one what is going on politically here. It has been absolutely insane. I will let the next few paragraphs explain...

Yesterday (October 20)

Well just another day of political turmoil in Turkey I suppose. It didn't all happen yesterday (when I wrote this) but I found out about all of it yesterday - a great way to start my week. I've written about most of it before so I will just gloss over the parts you already know and I think it will be easier just to go in chronological order. First on Saturday Abdullah Ocalan - the imprisoned leader of the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party - labelled a terrorist group by the Western World) - made a statement to the press that he was being tortured in prison. This put the entire Kurdish community up in arms and there were demonstrations in every major city in the Southeast as well as here, in Adana, Mersin, and İzmir. Many people were injured all over the country and one died in the southeast. Here in İstanbul there was a great fuss in a neighborhood called Kadiköy and after the event İHD was swamped with people coming to complain about police abuse. The next major thing that happened is that the right - winged paper Zaman began calling for the closure of the İstanbul İHD branch (where I am working). The reason for this is about 1 1/2 years old. In 2007 a group of Kurdish mothers came together every Saturday in front of a large school on İstiklal Cd. (the major shopping/socializing street in İstanbul, near İHD) to demonstrate against the imprisonment and torture of their sons. One day they had a press conference here at İHD. The police wanted to come and film the conference but the people at İHD said they could come but not film. They let the police in, they gave them press releases, and were overall very cooperative - they just wouldn't let them film. The police took their I.D. cards and didn't say anything until today. Today we found out that the police are now moving against İHD - 1 1/2 years after the incident. The police might start to try and make trouble for İHD but I think there is very little they can do because İHD is such a big organization with offices all over the country. Still, Zaman found out about this and wrote a scathing article in the Turkish version of their newspaper. Well...we will see. I might end up out of a job. The third and final thing that happened politically is that the Ergenokon trial resumed. I wrote about this once for an entire blog and I am still confused but it is a really big deal and it is all anyone is talking about. The trial is held in Ankara and there were so many people at the courthouse that they couldn't hold them all. It was hardly a fair day in the courthouse because there was so much chaos that the judge barely had control of the courtroom. Sheer madness. I guess it matches the anger of the Turkish people. We will see what comes out of it.

On happier news - I am definitely going to help Leyla write about torture for the next 5 months and hopefully I can take this with me when I got to the Southeast because it is a huge project and it is definitely done on a racial and economic basis. I am excited but some of what I am reading is absolutely repulsive. Also Leyla will take me with her when she goes to her village in Mardin when she goes in February. She is also putting me in contact with lots of people that she and her family know. Also I spoke with Berivan (who is one of the two people who get paid from İHD) and she also wants to help me get in contact with people from villages in her province, Diyarbakır. I can probably convince İhsan to help me talk to people in Van province too because that is where he is from. I am really excited because things for my time in the Southeast are finally starting to go right.

(Today - October 21)

Another day at İHD is passing (I can get some of my best and most productive writing done here which means that I will be blogging much more often). First Leyla and I went to TOHAV (Türkiye İnsan Hakları Vakfı) which deals exclusively with torture. We picked up some reports for the past four years but all in Turkish so more difficulties for me but the reports are really comprehensive. Then we had two different groups of people in with awful stories of police abuse. The first had been at Kadiköy on Saturday with the other protesters and had had is face completely smashed in by the police as well as his ribs broken. He was a gruesome sight to see. Then we had four young men who came in who had another story of abuse in Kadiköy. On Friday last week one of their friends was getting out of jail so they went to meet him. I didn't quite understand the whole story but the long and short of it is that one of them ended up in a holding cell and his arm was broken, his head was smashed and his neck was cut. Another wasn't taken to the cell but his face was really really wrecked and the third looked pretty bad too. They told their stories and then we called the biggest newspaper in Turkey and they sent a reporter straight away. A television crew also came and we had an impromptu press conference. I might end up on the news tonight because I don't think I was careful enough to keep away from the camera. Tomorrow we will have a press conference for the other group of people and we will bring in more people who were at Kadiköy on Saturday. All in all I love working at this place. I get to see what is going on up close and first hand and I also get to meet people working for prison reform, representatives from DTP (the Kurdish political party), Ocalan's lawyers, people trying to keep women safe who are threatened by honor killings, journalists, teachers and everyone in between. It is amazing!

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