Quite some time passed since the EBM, or at least it seems like that to me. I was thinking about the EBM, the people there and my mind stopped for a moment that I considered very significant. It was during the “Freedom of Speech: activists or militarists” workshop: Gizem stands there, goes to the center of the room and starts telling a story. The story of a girl, a 20-year old student, risking her life for getting attention for what she believes in and almost crying when she tells about it. She was that girl.
I did not know Gizem before and I did not know either that freedom of speech is still so repressed in Turkey. Together with the workshop leaders, she opened my eyes about the fact that the police do not hesitate to attack and arrest people, even when they protest are held peacefully. An episode for all: in order to show support to their friend who was sent to jail, a group of students cut their hair and sent it to the police. The result: they got arrested too!
You may think that police has too much power, but that is not true. The military was the most powerful institution, but now the government controls the military, representing an even bigger obstacle to freedom of speech. This is the reason why Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, two journalists who were critical of the government and of a key government supporter, got arrested because of “belonging to a terrorist organization and inciting the public to hatred”. This topic was brought up by one guy in the audience with a T-shirt in their favor and the discussion moved on the role of media in shaping public opinion. However, national media are not the only source of information: people can learn from one another, as we did in the workshop, or as Spanish protesters “Indignados” are doing through educating fellow citizens instead of going on squares.
Having assessed the power of talking, some suggestions are to raise awareness on the topic of freedom of speech, especially connected with the Turkish situation, in your weekly meetings, write on blogs and, to make a bigger impact, make a one-day demonstration in every country. These are the suggestions that came out of our workshop, but maybe you have more!
Or maybe you have more stories that are worth spread with the rest of the network in order to let everyone know. We have freedom of speech, let’s use it!
Written by Martina Zanero, AEGEE-Torino
Photograph by Stephanie Müller, AEGEE-Heidelberg