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30 sparrows in Ayşenur’s cell

Despite all the pain she had experienced, Ayşenur’s voice sounded so joyful, chirpy from her phrases like pearls so that I wanted to share with you.

The letter came from Ayşenur the previous evening. Actually I haven’t written anything about the letters she sent for a long time. A sentence I wrote here would hurt her in her cell, maybe I am not on this issue because she might get upset. But when I read the guests she told in her last letter, I couldn’t hold it. I wanted everyone to know, pray for her, write a letter to her. I don’t know about you, but the echo of the word “Don’t forget us here” in the first days of her detention is still ringing in my heart and ear. It never passed, it does not.

The life of a 26-year-old girl was blackened for unimaginable reasons. Ayşenur spends her best years in prison corners. This is a very heavy  thing. She will be on her 30th birthday again on April 3.

Despite all the pain she had experienced, this time her voice sounded so cheerful, chirpy from her phrases like pearls so that I wanted to share with you. If God wants to please a servant, he sends him all kinds of gifts, even in a tiny cell. I write in the words of Ayşenur, “20-30 sparrows without exaggeration” stuffed in her cell. Can you imagine, you step into your cell and all the sparrows welcome you. Then, by bowing, they say “we came to the end of today’s Show” and they are going out.

When she returned to her ‘room’ after the visit, Ayşenur met with them. “I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like that again,” she wrote She told about the night that she slept with a little sparrow in her lap. Ayşenur loves animals. In almost all of her letters, the phrase “I wish I had a cat” is always there. Sometimes I find myself kissing the pictures of cats and dogs she saw on newspaper pages, she says. She recently hung a photo of the dog Fındık in a blue uniform in her closet. Hopefully she has not heard that he is dead.

Sparrow Flow

On the days when the coronavirus has not became such a nightmare,I read the “Sparrow flow”, written on the morning of March 4, 2020, from her own sentences:

“Spring has come to Sincan. I woke up early in the morning, I drank lemon water. My throats are bad. Sinusitis upset me this winter. My cell is considered hot, but since there is a wall glass, there is a constant flow of air inside the room. I’m listening to Joy Fm as I write to you. My birds, who did not leave me in all four seasons, started to quarrel and sing sweetly as the weather warmed. Yavuz might have explained, a wild bird is visiting me regularly. According to my vast knowledge of the documentaries (!), it is a  falcon 🙂 But I also think there might be a kestrel. When they appear in that courtyard, our little ones go wherever they find it open. Without exaggeration, I saw that 20-30 sparrows entered while I was at sight. When it entered the room, they walked out in rows of two. I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like this again in my life. Sparrow Creek 🙂 There is also a night when I made the baby sparrow sleep in my bosom, which made its time memorable. You know, I love animals. Sometimes I find myself kissing the newspaper pages on animals. I even hung the photo of a dog in a unifor in my closet. I wish I had a cat. It is my biggest wish. ”

Even if I do not express, I feel desperate

Ayşenur talked about the books she read in the next section of his 1.5-page letter and some special topics that we talked about. Then she sent lots of greetings to her friends. She counts their individual names, and when she is happy she usually does this. She wrote that some people were upset about their  lack of loyalty. Right. From the ground to the sky. In this world, the free owes to the non-free and the happy to the unhappy. She awaits no compassion, pity, but friendship and fidelity:

“… There are people scared even there still. … There are those who consider a greeting much. What is this my  friend? Fear is felt strong. Machiavelli also argued that fear is the most dominant feeling and that societies can be easily managed with this. It’s true. How happy it is to people who suppress the mercy and fear in them! … But you know, even if I don’t express, I feel desperate. I think, of course, there will be a balancing for those who are unfaithful. Here are the sufferings that will be understood that day. Staying here so long is one of the biggest pain that can be given to a person. Duration and stiffness of prison conditions. Sometimes a sentence “I miss you” written on a colored paper is enough, you forget everything, even for a few hours … I have a suffering to be done…”


Ayşenur Parıldak was a journalist who had just started her profession and was a young law student. In July 2016, she was detained at Ankara University Faculty of Law, where she went to take the final grade make-up exam. She has been staying at Ankara Sincan Prison for 4 years for her work in Zaman Newspaper, which was closed with the Decree Law, criticizing the government from her social media account, following the Twitter scourge called Fuat Avni, and Bylock, who is not registered in her name and has no content.

She was kept in the cell in the first months. Nobody was contacted. She did not even have the right to write letters. She was then allowed to go out into the garden for 1 hour a day. Now subject to half cell application. She is sent to the cell after 17.00 in the evening. She described a night spent in those cells at the hearing on May 2, 2017 as follows:

“In the evening, the doors locked on us. Do you know how many times at night I knotted and untied the yarn? ” Nobody knows Ayşenur.

The new judicial package is still on the agenda due to coronavirus. There is a claim that those charged with ‘terrorism’ crimes will not be included in this package. In other words, thought “criminals” such as Ayşenur, political prisoners, journalists, writers… I hope this won’t be the case. The people they call terrorists consist of “Ayşenur” who built a world from a sparrow stream and be happy over it.

Resource: Sevinç Özarslan-BOLD Medya

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