To be a woman in Turkey

To be a woman in Turkey

 

In Turkey, I was a teacher who was an advocate of human rights, democracy, and universal values. I was so successful in the job that I was rewarded many times by current government officials due to my devoted work.

As a teacher for seven years, I trained thousands of students and enabled them to be qualified and conscious individuals for society. And now, I’m speaking as one of the tens of thousands of Turkish refugees who had to leave everything behind and leave their country with a backpack.

My name is Bahriye. I’m an idealistic, devoted education lover teacher who has dreams and lives  for these dreams. My dramatic story is not only personally. It is the story of all women who imprisoned in Turkey because of their opinions. It is the story of all women who had to abandon their country leaving all of their past in Turkey. In fact, it is not a story, it’s a merely sad reality of Turkish women now.

My painful experiences are the horrible situation of the women who talk about truths loudly, who tell “I’m a woman”, “I’m a human” in Turkey.

I am a wife and a mother who has two children. And I was one of fifteen thousand women jailed and hindered from hugging their children now.  Yes, I say I was. Because I also imprisoned by the dictatorship in Turkey before I came here. And I was held separate from my children for seven months.

Yes, I’m one of tens of thousands of women imprisoned in Turkey now. And I want to speak on behalf of them and tell you their painful and desperate situation under persecution. I want to be their voice here. Before I begin to talk about what cruelties I exposed to in Turkey,

Being a woman in Turkey….

If you’re a woman and defends the realities, you are in jail in Turkey.
If you are a woman in Turkey and have dreams for the future, you have to forget all of them since the reality of dictatorship. You should know that “the man” won’t give you permission to realize them.

If you are a woman and have children in Turkey, you can not prepare them for a great future. Because at a time of the night, the police can pick you up from your home, or can come to your classroom, handcuff and put you in prison in front of your students. Yes, during the lesson in the class in front of your students. Just like me…

I forcibly detained by the police during the lesson in front of my students while teaching them how to prepare themselves for the future. I was taken to the police station in front of them while I was telling them how to be a good cop, a good lawyer, a good manager, and most importantly a good human.

In the mornings I was going to the school with my two children in a province away from my family and my husband; in the evenings, I was trying to be a mother and father to my children who separated from their father. When the police forced me into custody, all I could think about was that my children who left without a father would now be separated from their mother, too.

Yes, I was alone, and my children were fatherless. Because my husband was unlawfully fired from his job by the current government for no reason and also there was an arrest warrant for him since he wasn’t a fan of current dictatorship.

He did not submit himself to the dictatorship in order not to agree to this lawlessness, and he had to live apart from his family and us for a year. And my children didn’t see their father for a year since the regime’s cops were monitoring our house and us to capture my husband.

When the police unfairly took me into custody, all I could think about my fatherless children’s dramatical situation and the future of my students whose ongoing lesson was left unfinished. I was nearly crazy since one of my children who was sixteen months was in need of breastmilk and the other one was just five years old. And there was no one to look after them.

 

And I’m in custody.

 

Every second they detained me in the police station was the most painful moment of my life. On the other hand, they didn’t even provide my personal human needs. There was not enough food and water. They took my statement at the time I had to sleep, and hours and days didn’t make sense anymore.

For three days they only asked me where my husband was. On the other hand, I was weary owing to hunger and thirst. They said to me that if I didn’t tell them where he was, they would arrest me and I would never see my children again. They even threatened to give my children to the orphanage, change their identity and not find them again.

They held me in custody for three days without any legal reasons. After they tried many psychological torture methods on me, they decided to take me to court. The judge was in a cowardly mood owing to the policemen who were in the court. The judge only asked me about my husband’s location. After I did not give any information about my husband, he decided to arrest me. Duration of the trial was just 5 minutes. When I heard that I arrested, I passed out and only screamed “my babies”. It was a terrible situation for any mother.

Yes, they separated a woman, a teacher, a mother without showing a reason from her loved ones and everyone around her remained silent. On the other hand, cops were happy since they were able to make the judge arrest me. The current situation in Turkey is just like that. People are arrested for no reason in front of their neighbors, relatives, friends, and everyone is only watching them. Everyone is in silence in fear of being arrested. Judges are in afraid of being arrested if they don’t obey the orders of police forces which are the stick of the current regime. The dictatorship and fear regime is showing its power everywhere.

New mothers have been taken from the delivery room and sent to the prison with their newborn baby. New mothers with their newborn babies imprisoned in spite of the fact that it is forbidden according to the current regulations. Now 743 (seven hundrend forty-three) babies are in prison with their mothers in Turkey. And these women are in prison owing to unclear, intangible accusations without any evidence. There are only uncertain intelligence predictions. And the predictions are not also crime oriented. The only reason is not to like Erdoğan, not to adore to the Party. If you say anywhere including social media “Erdoğan doesn’t obey the constitution” or “Erdoğan is not a good leader”. You must know that you are on the verge of being arrested. So the only crime of these mothers is not to think like Erdogan and his fans.

In the world, while freedom of thought and expression is a fundamental right, it is a crime in Turkey. Thinking differently from the Party and Erdogan is enough to be a terrorist.

When I was taken from the courtroom to the prison as handcuffed, I had only one thought that my children should not see me. Their mother was a terrorist, not a criminal. They should not be  excluded from the community and they should not remember me as handcuffed. I closed my hands with my dress, and I just looked at them from a distance since they didn’t let me touch them.

The most difficult moment of my life was to leave them alone and not touch them. I don’t want you to put yourself in my shoes since I don’t even want any mother to imagine this dramatic situation.

In court, there were my teacher friends who were against the regime’s oppression and tyranny practices and my babies with my parents. The only thing they were able to do was crying for me. I know that they all were also afraid of being arrested since they had come to the court. I am sure that the policeman noted their information for the following investigations.

 

And my life in jail.

On the way to the prison with the prison vehicle, I saw my house and the school where I worked for the last time from the small window of the prison car. This was the last time I saw what I left behind. In the meantime, I can never forget the look of my children. When my husband found out that I was arrested, he cried until the night and drew this picture of our children.

And this is another picture of our dramatic times.

 

 

 

 

 

I was under arrest, separate from my children. My hosband was separate from the children with the fear of getting caught. As a result, our children were alone and unprotected. Our family was torn apart.

This picture actually tells us as the situation faced by many families in Turkey. Laws and universal human rights are ignored and people’s freedoms are taken away. They are also waiting in prison for years without being allowed to defend themselves in a fair court. They’re waiting, they’re just waiting. These people and we have only one request. Living freely in a world where there is social peace and where people can express their expressions freely. We are paying the price of this request by being arrested and punished in dictatorial regimes. Even our children and our families are paying this price. Some died of this pain, some suffered serious illness, like cancer, and are waiting to die in prisons. Others suffered psychological trauma. But the persecution is still not over and continues to grow day by day.

I will not tell you about the psychological disorders I experience in prison, the non-human condition of the prison, the restriction of the interview with the lawyer, the lack of adequate food and water and many other unlawful treatments. Because when you’re in there, you don’t even have time to think about them. The sadness of being separated from your children, your family and your wife does not even give you the opportunity to think about all the unlawfulness that you experience. You can only think about your loved ones.

When I was in custody, I couldn’t see my wife because he had an arrest warrant. We could only write letters to each other. He could not write those letters in his own name and used a fake name. Because I wasn’t even allowed to communicate in any way with him.

 

 

One of the most important memories I had in prison and that affected me was that; One of the guards came to the ward one day and asked “Who is the Bahriye”. I answered, “I am.” And she told me that my students had prepared a banner and wanted to come to the front of the prison with this banner but they could not come because it was forbidden. My students wrote on the banner: “We love you very much. We’re with you.” This was my biggest motivation until I was released. So I didn’t do anything wrong, and my students were aware of that. They believed that I was innocent and that was the most important thing for me.

 

 

I was released after seven months of imprisonment.

When I got home, my family, my friends and my students greeted me despite all sorts of pressure. It was the happiest moment of my life to know and see they were with me.

I thought that it would be very happy for me to live freely with my children after my release, but not so clearly. Because thousands of mothers staying in the prison could not experience the happiness I had. This thought prevented me from being happy with my children. I’m still not exactly happy with it.

 

 

After my release, we met secretly with my hosband and decided that we should go abroad. We made the right decision. Because a month after I was released, the court decided to arrest me again. We could not live much longer than in Turkey. We should go to a country where we can live freely with our children. But since we had a warrant of arrest, we couldn’t do it legally. Leaving our family, our memories, everything that belongs to us, we crossed the Meriç river on the border with Turkey and Greece. Eventually we ran to freedom with a small boat that even the danger of death.

 

And now I’m here. I’m here as a lady with no future. I don’t have memories of my past, at least I don’t want to remember. My only memory of the past and what I should remember at any moment is my female friends and their children held in prison in Turkey.

I feel lucky being here. And I believe I have only one responsibility now. To be the voice of them and to be able to tell the world about this persecution which they live. Please listen to these innocent women and children. Give voice to those women who are exposed to new persecution and evil every day and are separated from their children.

And finally, ı want to say it again that I am a woman who has no past memories but who looks forward to the future.

Kaynak: Mağduriyetler http://magduriyetler.com/2019/03/24/to-be-a-woman-in-turkey/