NEWS CENTER -DTK Co-Chair Leyla Güven held in Elazığ Prison sent a letter to the Minister of Justice and said: "Your ministry is the home of strip searches and torture."

 

Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-chairman Leyla Güven, who was sentenced to 22 years and 3 months in prison, was arrested on 22 December 2020 and sent to Diyarbakır Women's Closed Prison. Güven sent an open letter to Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül from Elazig Women's Closed Prison. Güven, who sent a letter on behalf of 13 detained women, criticized Gül's visit to Mardin, the pressures on Kurdish language, and strip search. 

 

'YOU DID THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYTHING YOU SAID'

 

The letter Güven wrote is as follows: "Mr. Minister of Justice. We learned in prison that you have come to Amed, the heart of the Kurds. The city you appointed trustees, the city you arrested the politicans, the city you have been trying to erase everything about the Kurds. You gave some messages from Diyarbakır while Parliamentary Speaker addressed the people from Mardin about Kurdish language which made us think that you are not aware of yourself. You did the opposite of everything you said as the AKP for the last 20 years. But you did it very skillfully. We'll give you that.

 

DEFENSE IN KURDISH WITH A PAID TRANSLATOR

 

We should admit that we were excited when you said you were going to solve the Kurdish question at first. We thought you'd finally understood that the main problem of this country is the Kurdish question. But we have lived to see that it was not the case. Let's go over again what you told in Amed. You said you have made it possible to make our defenses in court in Kurdish. Yes, you did. Those who have the money for it can hire a paid translator and make their defense in Kurdish. This shows how 'valuable' Kurdish language, the language of millions of people is to you. But is it possible not to remember those who were fined for speaking in Kurdish?

 

CONCRETE EVIDENCES OF THE OPPRESSION N KURDS

 

You told that you heard Kurdish to be referred as 'unknown language'. It is not a new thing for us. The roots of it lies in your historic memory. Let's remember a very recent example of it. As the political female prisoners in Elazığ Prison we recieved one month disciplinary punsihment for singing in our mother tongue. We were deprived of our rights to send and recieve letters and our phone call rights. Do you know the context of the document communicated to us? 'It was understood that the convicts were singing in an unknown language..' This, I guess, is the most concrete evidence of the oppression on the Kurdish language. Yes. This is what we go through in the prisons under your control.