MERDIN, — The following is a letter sent out by the Kurdish jailed
deputy Gulser Yildirim on hunger strike that has entered its 65th day today.

All Peoples of the World…

First of all, I salute with my whole heart the honorable people who
have been sensitive towards this historical and critical protest that
most of us have started as of September 12 2012, and who have been
standing for us, understanding us and being a voice for us…

I am a Kurdish mother. Today, as thousands of people in prisons
resisting to death, this historical mission has put on the shoulders of
the sons and daughters of this people the heaviest burden. Being the
mother and a comrade of one of these sons and daughters, I will stand
with them to carry this burden till the end. This is a requirement of my
moral, political, humane and conscientious position which determines my
stance in life.

Those, who are thinking of repressing the representative forces of
the people in order to silence them, should now realize that: If it were
any other people who have suffered from the persecution Kurdish people
have suffered for centuries now, they would have come to the threshold
of insanity. But Kurdish people are still hanging on to its patient and
calm attitude just as its geography. They have tried to silence this
people by silencing us. They have tried every possible means to turn the
Turkish people against us. In fact, we are representing the Turkish and
Kurdish people at the same time. Because, we are voluntarily
sacrificing ourselves in order to stop this war and we are facing those
who applaud the mutual killings of Kurdish and Turkish children on the
mountains everyday.

Those in power, who are insulting our values everyday in order to
discredit us and to reduce us into nothingness, should not forget that
the fate of us and our people is not under the monopoly of Erdoğan or
AKP. History and the people have seen this hundred times.

I am the deputy of the people. I am a part of the people. Holding us
here as captives, keeping us waiting, leaving us without initiative and
acting as if we don’t exist amount to an insult to the people of which
we are the representative. If necessary, we would die in order to stop
the bloodshed, to start the process of negotiation and dialogue. Because
we are the sons and daughters of a tradition which dies for the sake of
the love for a free and equal life.

If I am the deputy of this people, I am also a partner of their
sorrow. Those who don’t respect this people don’t respect us either.
Everyone is responsible from what is happening on this land. Being a
human requires to be a fellow of all oppressed people. In the name of
this requirement that we also went in the hunger strike. Here I would
like to say one thing to those who conclude that we love death: That we
are lying our bodies to death is for the sake of free days to come and a
life that we love to death. Loving yourself and loving the life are the
same thing. If you turn your behind to the pain of the culture and
people that have shaped your life invalidates all those forms of love.

Today is the sixteenth day of the hunger strike of the group that I’m
in. We have never lost our hope and faith, and we will not. Today
history is making us pay the price for people’s having a freely and
equal life. Avoiding this price destroys all humane, political and
conscientious claims of us.

I am aware that the voice of a mother, who has three children, her
family, her beloved comrades and all peoples of the world outside the
prison, sounds thin today in this country. Putting aside my identity as a
deputy; that I, as an human being, am facing the risk of eroding my
body day by day is for the happy and free future of peoples whose
devotion and suffering is unquestionable.

Some people keep telling the absurdity that hunger strikers have
received an order from somewhere. I am telling this with my entire
sincerity: We are searching for ways for convincing the old, sick, and
the underage to stop the hunger strike. We have started the hunger
strike entirely on our own will and we basically aim at opening up paths
of dialog and resolution with the collective struggle of everyone. We
are involved in this action in order to get our demands heard by the
world. We demand the end to the oppression of our native language and
re-inclusion of Abdullah Ocalan, who is the most important actor to stop
the war, into the process as a political subject.

No one, including me, wants to believe that death can be a remedy
when all paths of life are closed. That is why, I say, hear us! Leave
all your political prejudices aside and think as a far-sighted person in
order to prevent deeper cliffs and wars among people. Taking our dead
bodies from prisons will be the start of a division and disintegration
that can never be reversed.

I am sending my love and bowing respectfully to those people who, as
opposed to the silent majority, have become our voice to the best of
their ability, small or big.

Gülser YILDIRIM

Imprisoned BDP Mardin Deputy
http://rojhelat.info/en/?p=4419