The news reached us in the last days about yet another prison sentence in Turkey. This time, the state which is well on its way to fascism, pointed its finger towards the anarchist propaganda. The magazine Meydan, which had already been closed down during the Erdogan’s “cleaning” after the Coup, was now hit even more. The editor of Meydan, an anarchist magazine issued by DAF (Devrimci Anarsist Faaliyet / Anarchist revolutionary action) is now sentenced to more than one year in prison. The State claims some Meydan articles were promoting terrorist methods. It is not hard to understand this verdict, yes, all the ideas which organised anarchists in Turkey are promoting, like gender equality, workers’ rights, economic system based on mutual aid and without private property, freedom of the individual, antionationalistic and antifascist ideas (and of course we must not forget their support to Rojava revolution) – it is all very dangerous to the State. Taking the right to write, speak and organize around this ideas is something unforgivable in today’s Turkey. Using the rhetoric of public safety and comparing anarchist ideas in any form with terrorism and violence is an old story, we have seen it for more than 100 years all over the world. We are not surprised nor shocked.
But, as well as our comrades in Turkey, we know that this business of the states and regimes haven’t managed to silence the roars. There will always be another Meydan, another page printed and distributed, another article written.
We send our solidarity and thoughts to the Meydan and DAF comrades; behind prison walls or on the streets, already now they are on the only possible and logical side of history.
FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN TURKEY!
LONG LIVE DAF!
ANTIFA ISTRA and collectives UP-INDE (Koper), ARGO (Izola) and Alternativa Obstaja (FAO-IFA)
Interview with a comrade from DAF
Statement of Meydan
Prison Sentence to Managing Editor of Meydan Newspaper
An investigation was started by Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s office about our newspaper related to articles “Both Arrival and Departure of State is From Fear”, “Banned Until Further Order”, and “Recreating Life” in the 30. issue of our newspaper published on December 2015 with the caption “Banning Everything”. The lawsuit following the investigation ended after almost a year of trials.
On the summary judgment yesterday, the court sentenced the managing editor of our newspaper Hüseyin Civan to 1 year and 3 months of imprisonment with the charge “making the propaganda for the methods of a terrorist organization constituting coercion, violence or threats through legitimizing or praising or encouraging the use of these methods”.
As we emphasized in the articles leading to the investigation, “State will never be able to captivate the passion of freedom of and the conviction of freedom of the peoples”.
As an anarchist newspaper knowing that the free life that we believe in can only be created through struggle, we will never give up writing what we stand up for and distribute what we write. We will continue to resist, act and write against oppression, investigations, custodies and arrests.