A Turkish court ruled to ban the distribution and sale of “Walls Will Come Down”, a book of poems by Figen Yüksekdağ, the former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The book, deemed to constitute terrorist propaganda through publication, is to be confiscated, and its collected copies will be destroyed, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
Figen Yüksekdağ, who has been behind bars in the Kocaeli Type F Prison since 2016, first published the book 1 September 2020, on Turkey’s Peace Day.
In her poem entitled My Cloudy Head, Yüksekdağ wrote, “Humanity writhes on the edge of nothingness as basements burn, as darkness sets the fires, as babies in deserted homes are being shot in the head”.
According to the Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, these verses amounted to praise for members of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), and aimed to “gain popular support” for the group that Turkey designates a terrorist organisation.
Walls Will Come Down is a collection of poems about the activists who lost their lives in the Suruç massacre and the Ankara train station bombing, and Taybet İnan, whose dead body could not be collected or properly buried for days during the 2015 military curfews in Silopi.
“No court order is strong enough to silence poetry,” Ceylan Yayınları, the publisher, said in a statement. “There is no compromise with those who find such decisions in accordance with the notion of law.”
Source:MedyaNews
