Turkey – World Without Prisons

Aysel Tuğluk Must Be Released Immediately: A Life of and Against the Turkish Colonial Prison System

by GPAC member Ozlem Goner

“Among the thousands of Kurdish political prisoners in Turkish colonial prisons, Aysel Tuğluk, who has been in captivity for nearly five years, has been sick and her medical condition requires immediate release from prison, which the Turkish state continues to deny. Her friends report that Tuğluk’s medical condition got worse after the racist attacks during her mother’s funeral in Ankara. Tuğluk’s life, her ongoing imprisonment despite her medical condition, her family’s early experience with torture and death in Turkish colonial prisons, as well as her political activism against the gross human rights violations and torture targeting the Kurds in the 1990s, is one illustrative case of how prisons are central to the continuity of Turkish colonial rule on the Kurds and the historicity of the Kurdish political prisoners’ anti-colonial abolitionist struggles.

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Given the historical context of the prison system as a tool of oppression of the colonized populations and suppression of their resistance, although pragmatically tempting at times, an overemphasis on “legality” of activities and organizational affiliation of some political prisoners unintendedly reproduces state-defined bounds of “legal” politics and recognizes the criminalization of others who are involved in state-defined “illegal” politics. Instead of separating “legal” vs. “illegal” resistance, or political prisoners “deserving” and “not deserving” freedom, our focus should rather be on the role of the prison system in the criminalization and punishment of anti-systemic movements. In her several attempts to escape the various Turkish prisons throughout the 1980s, Sakine Cansız, expresses the illegitimacy of the “legal” system that was used to colonize Kurdish populations and criminalize their dissent. Although the concept of “abolition” was not used explicitly in her biographic work, a prison abolitionist politics, developed specifically around political captivity, and articulated more broadly around the illegitimacy of a colonial legal system, has been carried out for decades by the Kurdish freedom movement.”

Read the full article at Jadaliyya.

Prison Resistance Highlights From Around the World: Middle East / West Asia

As we are commemorating the 50th anniversary of Attica Prison Rebellion, we will be sharing examples of prison resistance from around the world since the beginning of the pandemic. The goal is to highlight the ubiquitous struggles against carceral tools of oppression. We’re starting with Middle East / West Asia following the escape of 6 Palestinian prisoners from Gilboa Zionist Detention Center. While we do not attempt to produce a comprehensive list, here are selected examples of prison resistance from the region (please send us other examples and more extended analyses to share!):

Middle East / West Asia

Palestine

On September 6 this year, 6 Palestinian prisoners escaped through a tunnel from the high-security Gilboa prison near Jenin. Most have spent 20 years or more behind bars serving life sentences. Following the escape, the Israeli Prisons Authority has imposed punitive measures on Palestinian detainees, banning lawyers and family visits.

Iran / Ahwaz – Khuzestan

On March 30-31, 2020, security forces used excessive force to quell protests in Sepidar prison and Sheiban prison in the city of Ahwaz, Khuzestan province after some inmates set rubbish bins on fire. The protests in Sepidar prison appear to have started after authorities reneged on earlier promises to release prisoners whom the authorities did not have security concerns about as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Amnesty International estimated that 21 prisoners were killed.

Iran / Eastern Kurdistan

Over 80 prisoners escaped from a prison in the city of Saqqez in Iran’s Kurdistan province on March 27 following riots due to growing concerns among inmates about the spread of coronavirus in the prison. Mostafa Salimi, one of the escapees, was subsequently arrested by authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan and extradited to Iran where he was executed. The 53-year-old was arrested and sentenced to death in 2003 for “waging war against God” and being a member of a Kurdish opposition group.

Lebanon

Riots erupted in at least two overcrowded Lebanese prisons in March 2020 as inmates demanded to be released over fears the coronavirus outbreak would spread rapidly among them. Security forces reportedly responded with live fire, wounding at least 2 in Roumieh prison. In addition, dozens of inmates at the Zahle prison went on a hunger strike in order to demand an amnesty.

Turkey / North Kurdistan

The indefinite-rotating hunger strike launched on November 27, 2020 by Kurdish political prisoners in Turkey’s prisons against the isolation of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan in Imrali island still continues and is on day 285 . The prisoners have increased the shift of days from 5 days to 15 days as of 14 July and the 50th group is now fasting. Ocalan has been in solitary confinement since 1999 when he was captured by the Turkish state, with extremely limited access to visits and lawyers.

Pakistan / Sindh Province

In June 2020, prisoners in Pakistan’s south Sindh province lodged a protest and held four policemen hostage after their seven inmates were tested positive of COVID-19. They demanded that the authorities let them maintain social distancing by allowing them to move out of their barracks. A heavy contingent of police was called in to manage the protest, and the hostages were released after a discussion between police and the prisoners.

Freedom for Öcalan

The Freedom for Öcalan campaign is a UK trade union-backed initiative to secure the release of imprisoned Kurdish political prisoner Abdullah Öcalan.

In 2017 the annual meeting of the TUC voted unanimously for a motion calling for Mr Öcalan’s immediate release and a return to peace talks between Turkey and representatives of the Kurdish people.

Visit here for the campaign website

Turkish Government is following ‘divide and conquer strategy’ over Bar Associations

Draft law reduces leading bar associations’ authority, leads to creation of rival groups, the ICJ and Human Rights Watch said today. The Turkish government’s plan to allow for multiple bar associations appears calculated to divide the legal profession along political lines and diminish the biggest bar associations’ role as human rights watchdogs, they added.

The current bar associations have not been consulted, and 78 bars out of 80 signed a statement opposing the plan.

Read more here.

Dialogue Between Socialist Feminists from China, Russia, Turkey

A panel by Alliance of MENA Socialists, March 1, 2020

Watch the panel here.

Zoe Zhao: Sociology PhD student working on issues of gender, digital labor and transnational social movements. Having volunteered for several NGOs and social movement networks in China and the US, she hopes to contribute to contemporary transnational organizing via activist scholarship.

Anna Nizhnik: Associate Professor, Russian State University for the Humanities. Socialist feminist, publisher, activist. Specializes in Literary Gender Studies and Women’s History.

Ecehan Balta: Holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, master’s degree and PhD in Political Science. She has been an ecosocialist feminist activist for around 30 years. She is a member of Baslangic (A Start) Collective founded after the Gezi uprising in 2013 as a combination of movements from different political origins. She is also a member of Socialist Alternative, a Turkish section of ISA (International Socialist Alternative).

Moderated by Fatemeh Masjedi: Iranian academic historian and activist based in Berlin. Member of the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists. She was a political prisoner in Iran because of her women’s rights activities.