Exiled journalists, aimed by Erdoğan’s regime, gathered in Germany. The journalists, who came together in the action organized by the International Journalists, called for imprisoned journalists at the world’s largest book fair in Frankfurt.
Tuba Güven read the press release on behalf of exiled journalists at the protests in the garden of the fair. She stressed practices reminiscent of the Hitler period are occuring in Turkey captured by the Erdoğan’s regime. She mentioned that hundreds of thousands of books have been burned and hundreds of journalists and writers have been taken into prisons.
The following sentences were used in the press statement on behalf of the journalists;
Now we stand at one of the most important book fairs of the world. Yet we come from a country where hundreds of thousands of books have been burned.
You might find what I am going to say soon familiar from the Hitler period but each of them is happening in Turkey captured by the Erdoğan’s regime.
The Erdoğan regime banned hundreds of thousands of books with the lists it published overnight. Anyone who has the books was going to be investigated as terrorists.
People began threw away the books in their homes secretly.
Fingermark found on the book in the dump
History teacher Arzu Akçakaya’s fingerprints founded on a book in the trash. She was arrested and taken to prison with her 10-months-old daughter Damla.
This event, which has no example of it in the history before, took place in Turkey in 2016. Like Arzu Akçakaya, there are thousands of people arrested as terrorists because of the book they read.
Some of the Turkish writers, whose books can be founded at the fair, are in prison for years. Ahmet Altan, Nazlı Ilıcak and more…
The number of books destroyed by the state in the last three years is expressed in millions. Only the Ministry of Education announced that 301 thousand books were destroyed.
Now people only can throw away forbidden books after they have cleared their fingerprints or burn them.
Life Sentence…
We are exiled journalists who were able to find a refugee boat and escape from the Erdogan regime. However 200 journalist and writer are still in prison.
They were sentenced 6 years, 10 years, 20 years and even life sentence.
From here, we want to shout that our hearts are with them at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
We need you so much…
We haven’t forgotten you. Turkey became a country that produces war in your absence. We need you so much. We miss you.
We call upon all free people of the world in solidarity with the imprisoned journalists and writers in Turkey.
