Ahmet will come out and write once more. What about us?

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Yayınlanma: 28.12.2017 - 16:07
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Our noses have been rubbed in the menacing impertinence of those in power, who have proclaimed that they themselves will block through instigating terrorism all demands for rights and freedoms, managing in their own minds to describe this as terrorism.

The days are rapidly approaching in which, even if we hide in our homes, mind our own business and keep our noses clean, we will not be able to escape attacks by paramilitary forces the extent of whose boldness we can easily guess.

On the very day on which we were immersed in this horrifying political environment, another blow was struck against justice at Çağlayan Judicial Complex.

The Cumhuriyet trial turned into total chaos with Ahmet’s defence being obstructed and it has taken a turn in a most formidable direction.

As much as the tyranny of those in power is to blame, so are the thousands of people who confront this tyranny by acquiescing to the intimidation and browbeating, who grow more silent as they are silenced, who watch everything from a distance, who do not and cannot leave their homes, who cannot bring themselves to press at courtroom doors and who are incapable of calculating how massive a force opposition through passive but mass resistance to the violence imposed by those in power could be.

As are the journalists and politicians who follow what happens on social media and make do with passing a couple of comments there about the affair.

And those who still remain silent, silent and silent even though there now remains no doubt that, in remaining silent, their turn will come.

The crowds who watch from afar with subdued anger all the injustices that are carried out against them just as against others.

Those who have not yet gone out into the cold and raised their objections in a loud voice.

Those who have still not pressed at the doors of courts that trample over justice.

Those who do not understand that fascism strengthens by a further step with each decree that is issued and bears down on us.

For those who watch what happens to us and them from the shells into which they have retreated and which they imagine by some virtue to be secure, the spectacles of injustice from the latest Cumhuriyet hearing amounted to those in power having grown more ill-tempered on that day than every past day.

The occupier of the palace was more ill-tempered.

Those on the bench were more ill-tempered.

The danger was cascading down from the very top onto us.

And everyone’s mind was on the extrajudicial executions that may be conducted in the middle of the street.

In the stressful encounter between those who are free despite being in detention and those who are held hostage under the thumb of the wielders of power, our colleagues once more struggled in vain.

The judge shifted his glaze back and forth, with empty eyes and with who knows what thoughts, between the papers before him and the defendants.

He was fearful because of the words and nervous of the sentences. He had understood.

Opposite him were those standing as if in defeat but actually victorious by all accounts.

There are people who do not fear those in power, but, on the contrary, instil fear in them.

Say what you will, with the spiteful volition of a furious totalitarianism putting the journalists it had condemned on trial, it would nevertheless put itself on trial.

With Ahmet making mention in the courtroom of “a dictatorial regime that is fully devoted to its own tyranny and feeds its evil with fear,” a Themis whose blindfold had been undone and had been dragged along by the hair and dumped on the ground would stand in vain turned to stone in the cavity of the building.

They silenced Ahmet and removed him from the courtroom by force.

His friends screamed, “Ahmet will come out and write once more!”

At that point, it seemed that even the judge understood.

That day will really come and the real criminals will be tried under real laws in a real court.

 

***

 

The next hearing is on 9 March in Silivri.

The way things are shaping up, there will be even more horrific things in this country by that time.

If the masses, who do not leave their homes and go to Silivri or cannot or would not dream of doing so and who forget the absolute power of congregating at a court door in defiance of lawlessness and engaging in mutual solidarity, act as ever on that day they will once more have made the biggest mistake in their lives.

Yes, Ahmet and Emre and Akın and Murat and all the other journalists will one day come out of jail – and they will write again.

So, what about us?

When are we going to come out of our own jails and states of intimidation?

 http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/koseyazisi/893901/_Ahmet_cikacak_yine_yazacak__da..._Biz_ne_yapacagiz_.html


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