Those who seek justice in Turkey must not be left alone. We demand that all those who support democracy in Britain, all those in this country who work for justice, and all who enjoy the right to freedom of expression, use whatever means you have to call on the government and other authorities in Turkey to end the repression of Grup Yorum. Helin Bolek’s death was a sacrifice and tragedy. The tragedy unfolding must be ended – now.
Peace in Kurdistan
On 3 April 2020 Helin Bolek died on the 288th of a hunger strike turned death fast. Helin Bolek was a member of the popular Turkish folk band Grup Yorum. She protested the repression of her group and its supporters in Turkey and abroad by the Turkish government, led by President Erdogan. Grup Yorum demanded the right to sing freely, an end to the arrest, imprisonment and torture of Grup Yorum members and supporters, and an end to the ban on Grup Yorum concerts, which have been prohibited for nearly three years. Police attacked mourners at Helin Bolek’s funeral and prevented her from having a proper burial. We are responding to an appeal from parliamentarians and lawyers in Turkey for intervention from abroad to stop further deaths of Grup Yorum members and supporters and to back calls for the authorities in Turkey to stop criminalising dissenting musicians and artists in that country.
The state’s attacks on Grup Yorum followed the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016. Since then, members of democratic political parties and parliamentary parties in opposition to the government, local government mayors and officials, Members of Parliament, lawyers, human rights campaigners, teachers and academics and journalists have been arrested and imprisoned, often on terrorism-related charges. Their crime is to have criticised the government. In Istanbul the police have repeatedly raided the Idil Cultural Centre where the Grup Yorum band is based. Musical instruments have been broken and taken away during the raids, music books have been damaged and 30 people been arrested. It was this scale of repression that provoked the hunger strikes. Now another band member Ibrahim Gokcek is very close to death.
On 5 April 2020, Lawyers’ Day in Turkey, two lawyers who had defended Grup Yorum and been sentenced for terrorism-related offences, turned hunger strikes into death fasts. A tragedy is unfolding. The Istanbul Bar Association issued a press statement: ‘We are experiencing a first in the history of Turkish jurisdiction…We will never give up on our ideals of justice as attorneys-at-law. We will never be silenced. Even if we are left alone.’
Those who seek justice in Turkey must not be left alone. We demand that all those who support democracy in Britain, all those in this country who work for justice, and all who enjoy the right to freedom of expression, use whatever means you have to call on the government and other authorities in Turkey to end the repression of Grup Yorum. Helin Bolek’s death was a sacrifice and tragedy. The tragedy unfolding must be ended – now.
7 April 2020
Peace in Kurdistan 