Turkey: charges against Kurdish PEN member must be dropped

Meral Şimşek (CC Meral Şimşek)

RAN 03/2021

Kurdish PEN member, writer and poet Meral Şimşek is facing up to 15 years in prison on the charge of ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ and up to seven-and-a-half-years on the charge of ‘making terrorist propaganda’. The next hearing in the case has been set for 5 October. In a separate case, Şimşek faces up to five years in prison on the charge of ‘entering a restricted military area’ after she fled to Greece earlier this year and was pushed back to Turkey. The hearing will take place on 16 November.

PEN International believes that Meral Şimşek is being targeted for her writings and calls for all charges against her to be dropped.

TAKE ACTION: Please send appeals to the Turkish authorities:

• Calling for all charges against Meral Şimşek to be dropped;

• Calling for an end to the prosecution and detention of journalists and writers on the basis of the content of their writing or alleged affiliation, and for the immediate release all those held in prison for exercising their right to freedom of expression;

• Calling for an end to the crackdown on the Kurdish regions and for a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict.

Send appeals to:

Abdulhamit Gül

Role: Minister of Justice

Address: Ministry of Justice, Adalet Bakanlığı, 06659 Ankara, Turkey

Twitter: https://twitter.com/abdulhamitgul

Contact: info@adalet.gov.tr

Send copies to the Embassy of Turkey in your own country. Embassy addresses may be found here: https://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/turkey .

Please reach out to your Ministry of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic representatives in Turkey, calling on them to raise Meral Şimşek’s case in bilateral fora.

***Please send appeals immediately. Check with PEN International if sending appeals after 5 October 2021. ***

Please inform PEN International of any action you take and any responses you receive. Messages can be sent to Aurélia Dondo, Europe Programme Coordinator: Aurelia.dondo@pen-international.org

Publicity

PEN members are encouraged to:

• Publish articles and opinion pieces in your national or local press highlighting the case of Meral Şimşek and the state of freedom of expression in Turkey;

• Share information about Meral Şimşek and your campaigning activities via social media.

Please keep us informed of your activities.

Background

Meral Şimşek is the prize-winning author of three poetry books – Mülteci Düşler (Refugee Dreams), Ateşe Bulut Yağdıran (Clouds on Fire) and İncir Karası (Black Fig). Her novel Nar Lekesi (Pomegranate Stain), published in 2017, tells the story of Şimşek’s family and sheds light on the plight of Kurdish people in Turkey in the 1990s. She became a member of Kurdish PEN in June 2020. She also works as an editor and frequently publishes poems and articles.

On 9 December 2020, anti-terror police detained Meral Şimşek in Malatya province, Eastern Turkey. She was released the following day pending trial and placed under a travel ban. In January 2021, the Malatya 2nd High Criminal Court formally charged her with ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ under Article 314/2 of Turkey’s Penal Code, and ‘making terrorist propaganda’ under Article 7/2 of Anti-Terror Law No. 3713. The indictment notably mentions Şimşek’s short story Arzela, featured in the anthology Kurdistan + 100 in which twelve contemporary Kurdish writers imagine a country they could call their own by the year 2046. The anthology was awarded a flagship PEN Translates Awards from English PEN in 2021.

Meral Şimşek fled to Greece on 29 June 2021. Following her arrival, she was reportedly stopped by Greek police who strip-searched her and confiscated her identity documents and phone. She reports having been forced into a car, before being handed over to masked individuals who made her cross the border back into Turkey. On 30 June, she was detained by Turkish police at the Ipsala border crossing and sent to Edirne Prison, where she spent seven days in poor detention conditions. On 6 July, she appeared in court via the video-conferencing system SEGBİS. She was released under travel ban, and asked to report to the police station three times a week. The next hearing has been set for 5 October.

A separate case on the charge of ‘entering a restricted military area’ in Ipsala was filed against Şimşek, for which she faces up to five years in prison. The hearing will take place on 16 November.

The situation for freedom of expression in Turkey remains dire. Kurdish culture and language are harshly repressed. Most pro-Kurdish and Kurdish language media outlets have been closed down, and dozens of journalists of Kurdish or pro-Kurdish outlets are in prison on trumped-up terrorism charges, including news editor, reporter and poet Nedim Türfent. Writer and former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş remains behind bars, despite the European Court of Human Rights twice ruling for his immediate release. Kurdish PEN member and writer Gulgeş Deryaspî was sentenced to six years and three months in prison for ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ in December 2020. A verdict on her appeal is pending. PEN International calls for her conviction to be overturned.

For more information about the state of freedom of expression in Turkey, 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