On November 21, the case against Özgül Emre, İhsan Cibelik, and Serkan Küpeli was heard at the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. The 55th hearing was also the last hearing before the verdict.
During the hearing on November 21, Özgül Emre primarily presented her defense, which she began on November 20 and is referred to in Germany as “final words.” Following her, Serkan Küpeli simply stated, “I agree with my lawyers,” and the hearing concluded.
In the approximately three-hour hearing, Özgül Emre scrutinized the concept of terrorism. She expressed that the concept of terrorism is very vague and lacks a clear definition. She explained the roots of the concept and how it has been used in the past and today. She stated that today, individuals or organizations fighting for freedom are declared terrorists by imperialism and fascism. She noted that imperialists add or remove names from the terrorist list according to their needs. For example, she mentioned that the U.S. declared Al-Qaeda, which it had established, as a terrorist organization after it no longer needed it. She pointed out that governments are changed under the pretext of terrorism and that the internationally recognized right to resistance is denied in this context. Özgül Emre concluded the terrorism section by stating that the real terrorist is the child killer Erdoğan. After finishing this section, she detailed her journalism career. She mentioned that she has been a journalist since 1999, is a member of the Journalists’ Society in Turkey, and has been a member of the German Journalists’ Association since 2018. She stated that she continues her journalism in prison, has published two poetry books, and one is ready for publication. She has published four issues of a magazine called “Forbidden Justice” with modest means in prison. She has gone through every stage of journalism, from developing photos in a darkroom to the printing stage. “I know journalism; I just didn’t carry a camera because they used to be heavy,” she said. She emphasized that it is illegal to be monitored while engaging in journalistic activities and questioned which laws she violated and what anti-people articles she wrote within the framework of her journalistic activities. She also stated that she is a political journalist and could even interview leaders of illegal organizations, which would be a professional success for her.
In the second part of her defense, she dedicated time to answering the question, “Who am I?” She explained that she was born and raised in Germany, but her family decided to return to Turkey despite having good living conditions. She stated that they could not return to Dersim because the state did not leave any village that could return. She elaborated on the pressures and atrocities faced by Dersim from the fascist state, including village burnings since 1938. She mentioned that her grandmother’s village was originally an Armenian village, but its name was changed by the state because being Armenian in Turkey is considered the greatest crime and a movement. She noted that these issues are not covered in school textbooks and that she could not learn about poverty and oppression from them. She explained that they did not teach her Zazaki, her mother tongue, and that her family preferred to speak better Turkish and English because they were oppressed by the state. Despite being Alevi, she pointed out that the influence of Islam was significant in her neighborhood. They faced violence and police oppression due to their Alevi identities and could not openly practice their religious rituals. She stated that as a Zaza, she started every morning at school with “I am Turkish, I am honest, I am hardworking,” and that their national, religious, and class identities were erased.
She then described the deep poverty she experienced and how she encountered labor exploitation at a young age as a student. She worked in the school canteen during breaks, sold water at markets or football matches on weekends, and worked in various jobs, including as a secretary, in illegal textile workshops during the three-month summer holidays.
She mentioned that because she is Kurdish and Alevi, they are seen as “leftovers” by the state. She elaborated on the oppression faced by Alevis, detailing the Sivas and Maraş massacres. While watching the Sivas massacre on television, she expressed the emotional damage it caused to her and her family: “While the fire of the Alevis reached us through the television screen and ignited our hearts, our bodies were frozen; our eyes were the answer to whether we were alive or dead. Our eyes, filled with horror, and the tears flowing from our burning hearts. Centuries have passed, governments have changed, but even if oppression changes hands, it has not changed its form.”
She then recounted the deep emotional wounds she and her family experienced, particularly the murder of her uncle by the state. Her uncle had endured severe torture and was later executed: “Two years later, when my uncle was executed without trial, I was just a 14-year-old child. I had blended in among those entering the morgue. Don’t ask if a 14-year-old girl can enter a morgue, because we were already living with death at that age, so seeing the dead in that state was not extraordinary. A cold morgue filled with bodies whose numbers I could not remember. When I embraced my uncle’s mutilated body, drained of blood, and frozen like ice.”
Özgül Emre continued to emotionally recount the torture and oppression in Turkey. Briefly summarizing, she moved on to the next section: “Fascism did not care about children or women; fascism had no religion or faith. It proved its power through the bodies of children. Have you ever been tortured? Or have your children ever experienced such things? Can your heart and mind endure not just living through the torture inflicted by the state police, who blindfolded us? Perhaps you would change the channel or close your eyes to avoid seeing these moments; children like me lived through this, and more importantly, these things continue to happen in Turkey. The scars that torture and harassment leave on a child’s body are not just physical; they penetrate even deeper.”
She explained that oppression and resistance are intertwined. Here, she referenced her Alevi identity: “If one side is this, the other side is the resistance of our peoples against this exploitation and oppression… ‘If I do not resist here, no one will resist tomorrow,’ I grew up with Imam Hussein, who preserved his dignity even while being slaughtered alongside his family in Susuzluk and by the sword. Our stories included how Baba İshak’s followers, saying ‘the seed in the soil is also justly,’ united different peoples of various religions and languages in common resistance, and how they were hanged on the castle walls afterward. Sheikh Bedrettin, one of the prominent scholars of the time, who also advised the sultan, turned his face to his people and established a communal order by saying, ‘Tomorrow, except for the cheek, everything is together.’ Even if the order was disrupted by the Ottoman oppression and they were slaughtered, their slogans have been carried to this day.”
After explaining who she is, including her religion, sect, and nationality, she also stated who she is not: “She did not massacre the Native Americans, she did not drop napalm bombs in Vietnam, she did not kill tens of thousands in Argentina, she did not torture in the stadiums of Chile, she did not turn Iraq into a lake of blood, she did not create Al-Qaeda or ISIS, she was not Gestapo or SS, she did not commit the massacre in Maraş, she did not carry out the September 12 coup, she did not cause the bloody Sunday in Ankara, she did not kill the 300 workers in Soma. She did not commit massacres, tortures, theft, rape, exploitation, or occupation.
She was not a terrorist.”
So who was she? “She was one of the Amazon women of Anatolia, the sisters of truth, Rosa Luxemburg, today’s child from Gaza, yesterday’s Anne Frank who was murdered in a gas chamber. Partisan Tanya, whose real name was Zoya, Zarife, who was killed in Dersim, Sofie Scholl. Where there are oppressors and the oppressed, her place was clear. A Kurdish, Alevi, and socialist journalist.” She continued: “I had committed a great crime by wanting the brotherhood of peoples, I had committed a great crime by opposing theft, plunder, and looting, I had committed a great crime by asking for justice and bread for the peoples. An even greater crime was shouting the truths against lies, and not only that, I had taken my place in the ranks to carry these truths to the masses.”
Another crime was being a “woman”: “In a country where the deaths of women fill the third pages of newspapers every day, there was no place for women. We were ‘the dirt of your hands,’ ‘incomplete skirts,’ ‘long-haired but short-minded.’ We were the people of a country where the deaths of women and children occurred under state control and were later legitimized by law.”
“You cannot create terrorists from us,” she said. “The terrorist is NATO and U.S. imperialism.”
She requested that the court make a decision in accordance with the constitution, which is above Articles 129 a + b. She asked for a decision in favor of the peoples of Turkey.
She then listed her demands from the court:
The case should be dropped.
She and her co-defendants should be released.
Compensation for her 2.5 years of imprisonment, both material and moral.
Compensation from Germany for the Dersim massacre in 1938, which was carried out with German gas.
The prosecution of Tayyip Erdoğan in the International Criminal Court for the massacre he committed against Kurds and Alevis.
Tayyip Erdoğan should be included among the defendants of the Sivas massacre.
The prosecution of Murat Sungur, one of the defendants of the Sivas massacre living in Germany.
The verdict hearing will be held on Monday, November 25, at 1:30 PM.
