Let 2017 be the year of freedom

Dear friends, Akın Atalay, Murat Sabuncu, Kadri Gürsel, Güray Öz, Hakan Kara, Turhan Günay, Musa Kart, Önder Çelik, Bülent Utku and M. Kemal Güngör.

It looks like you will remain incarcerated over New Year. But, without feeling alone and in the knowledge that thousands of hearts are beating along with you, and sensing in your hearts the presence of the many whose thoughts are with you and convey to you their feelings of friendship and their love.

It is no secret that imprisonment comes in various forms in this country.

While in a military prison under the oppression of 12 March, I will never forget the words spoken to me by my late father, who at the time was in high judicial office, while paying me a visit on a free visitation day: ‘Keep your chin up, son, because you came here honourably on account of your thoughts. Unfortunately, this is how things are in our country. There is no toleration for thinking people.’

Who knows how many of our writers by now have spent New Year under a prison roof, not least Nâzım.

Some time ago, I wrote the following for Cumhuriyet:

‘The need is felt for trustworthy institutions that can serve as landmarks in a country that undergoes periods of turbulence and confusion and is buffeted by attempted coups, dictatorships and civil wars as much as Turkey.

For my generation, Cumhuriyet newspaper heads the list of such institutions. It occupies a crucial place in our life as a newspaper that respects human rights and the truth. Cumhuriyet newspaper has been our voice when we were in military jails, at times of martial law and when we were in exile abroad. It has never ceased to be at the side of people the system has crushed, despite the pressures, economic difficulties or even the murder and incarceration of its writers. It has always respected human rights, the supremacy of the law, democracy and the secular state structure. It has functioned as a school for the raising of democratic, enlightened generations in Turkey. This is why we have always taken pride in Cumhuriyet newspaper and have at all times adopted it as “our newspaper”. Nowadays, as ever, we say, “It is good that Cumhuriyet exists.”’

I repeat the same thoughts today and hope that 2017 will be the year of freedom for you along with all writers. I know that this freedom will not be delivered to us by a rosy-cheeked Santa Claus driving a reindeer-driven sledge through the snow. Nobody will gift it to us all nicely wrapped up and draped in coloured ribbons.

As ever, life will straighten itself out, justice and fair play will hold sway and your ordeals will be pinned on your chest like medals of honour. For, if people’s conscience and sense of justice can remain silent for a while, they cannot go unheeded for very long.

My dear friends, I wish you a happy 2017 - the year of your freedom.