VIGIL
FREE
KURDISH
PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE !
(from
left to right: Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak)
WHEN:
MARCH 5, 2001 - OCTOBER 11, 2001
SPONSOR:
THE AMERICAN KURDISH INFO. NETWORK (AKIN)
WHERE:
SHERIDAN CIRCLE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
(23rd
St. NW & Massachusetts Ave. NW, across the Turkish Ambassador's Residence)
October
11, 2001
Dear Friends,
On March 5, 1994, a terrible wrong was done to Leyla
Zana and her Kurdish parliamentarian colleagues at the door of the Turkish
Parliament building in Ankara, Turkey. She and her friends were arrested
on the flimsiest of charges: accused, among other things, of speaking Kurdish,
their mother tongues, in and outside of the parliament building. In a
subsequent kangaroo trial, four of the Kurdish parliamentarians were sentenced
to 15 years, each, behind bars.
Seven years and, as of this
writing -- October 11, 2001 -- 221 days have gone by.
In the past 221 days, a group of
Kurds and their American friends have undertaken a vigil -- 24 hours a
day seven days a week -- at Sheridan Circle across from the Turkish
Ambassador's residence in Washington, DC. They have built a replica of a
Turkish prison cell -- calling it 'The Cell of Atonement for
Turkey's Political Crimes Against the Kurds' -- and take
turns staying in it to atone for the wrongs inflicted by the Turkish government
on the Kurdish representatives. By forgoing their own comforts, they are trying
to highlight and effect the freedom of Kurdish parliamentarians.
The French philosopher Voltaire has
said, "The worst kind of hanging is to be obscurely hanged."
The Kurdish Question can compete for the top position of what Voltaire thought
of issues that are seldom visited, be they the ill fate of individuals or the
misfortune of nations. Apart from the occasional flickering news flashes
in the mainstream media, the average American is oblivious to the immense
sufferings of the Kurds. For a people chanced with the opportunity to
speak for the world, this is, indeed, unfortunate.
There are things you could do to
help alleviate the sufferings of the Kurds. Please consider visiting the
site of the vigil to express your solidarity with the Kurdish parliamentarians
or do something even better by volunteering a few hours of your time in the
cell. You could also take action from the comfort of your home or office
by contacting your representative in the House of Representatives to co-sponsor
House Resolution 133 which calls for the immediate and unconditional release of
Kurdish representatives. If you do these things and would like to do
still more, please consider contacting your local media outlets to interest
them in a story on the Kurds.
If you are curious about the site
of the vigil or would like to have a sense of what the cell looks like, click
on the following link for photos as well as commentaries: http://www.kurdistan.org/Free.the.Four/index.html
You could also contact us via
telephone at 202.483.6444