Who is Fikret Akar?
Fikret Akar entered Turkey in January 2001, intending to return to Europe after a short stay, where he was living at that time.
However, during his stay in an apartment, a raid was conducted, and he was arrested in May 2001. He received a sentence of 12.5 years for “membership in a terrorist organization.” According to the old Turkish Penal Code, he should have been released after two-thirds of his sentence, which means after 9 years. Under the newly enacted law, he should have been released even after 4 years. Nevertheless, Turkish fascism kept him in prison for a full 12.5 years.
In November 2013, he finally regained his freedom, but he was arrested again in September 2017. Since the authorities could not present anything substantial against him, they accused him of being a member of “Grup Yorum”. Of course, it is not a crime to be a member of Grup Yorum, but Fikret Akar was simply not from Grup Yorum.
Due to very arbitrary reasons for his arrest, he was eventually released in November 2019.
In 2021, a large-scale raid was conducted against 120 individuals, including Fikret Akar, for whom an arrest warrant was issued.
Fikret went underground and managed to stay hidden until August 17, 2024.
Since that date, he has been imprisoned for the third time.
Turkish fascism still has nothing substantial against him.
There are false statements made against him by traitors like Özlem Pembe and Neslihan Albayrak.
On February 2, 2025, he was forcibly transferred to the Y-Type prison in Çorlu.
We are publishing second letter from Fikret Akar, in which he describes the conditions in the prison. His first letter you can read here.
06.02.25, Çorlu
Hello, Dear Şükriye,
How are you? How is everyone?
Hope you’re all fine. We are doing well. We are as we should be.
I sent you a letter on Monday. I thought I’d send you another one on Friday. I’ve been writing letters all the time. People want to know how the journey went, what happened.
If I tried to write to everyone one by one, it would be impossible to keep up.
That’s why I have attached a summary of my story, so that those who are interested can read it and I can simplify my work.
Actually, how is this place, what we experienced at the entrance, what we are doing now, etc. is also a matter of curiosity.
I will write about it next week.
You can’t write everything at once and that leads to disinterest, doesn’t it?
By the way, you are favoured these days!
I am writing to you first and also sharing special messages besides the general explanation 🙂
I am writing so that people won´t be left in curiosity. Also, soon restrictions, visit bans might begin.
The isolation is in general intensified gradually. Whatever we do now is profitable.
I’m writing like this frequently by saying so. Let me explain in advance that you don`t say, ‘You’ve overwhelmed me, but we can’t do anything other than read your letters!’ 🙂 .
By the way, for some reason lately, I find myself without tea for 5 days every 6 months.
I was also without tea for 5 days in August. As I brewed tea one after another, my cellmates watched in astonishment. After a while, when things returned to normal, they also felt relieved.
Now the situation is a little different. The orders from the canteen came yesterday, Wednesday.
My tea maker (kind of kettle) came, too. A brand called Altus. It’s a by-product of Arçelik. The brewer has a teapot, almost a litre, it’s huge.
In Silivri, we are used to brewing half a pot. I brewed another half pot of tea.
It made 9-10 cups with a water glass. It never ends. 9 liters of water finished in a day.
Right now, I managed to drink up to 4 cups, but I’ve been exhausted from drinking tea for the past two days.
When I was staying with Aytaç in Burhaniye (city in Turkey) prison, there were 9 of us.
There was an Arçelik tea maker there. Although we made it so strong, we could barely get a cup of tea for everyone, we couldn’t drink a second cup.
This tea maker should have been here then. Now I’m going to ferment yoghurt. Ali used to ferment yoghurt in Silivri, he did it very well. It’s up to me now. Let’s see how it goes.
There are no chairs here. They said there won’t be any left in the prison; they will come. I’m sitting on the bed trying to write at the table. The bed is high. I’m practically leaning on the table, and it hasn’t even been a week, but my back has started to hurt. It hadn’t hurt for a long time; the bed reminded it of itself.
Speaking of Ali, we thought he went to Sincan F-type prison, but it turns out he went to Sincan Well Type prison. Gradually we learnt who went where. We even received faxes from some places. I’m still curious about how those who left are doing, and what their situation is like.
And we don’t know anything about the world! No TV, no radio, no newspapers. The newspaper here is bought as a monthly subscription. On Monday 3 February, I submitted a petition. They said that the subscriptions were made this month, there would be no newspaper until next month.
But it’s not my fault, I was forcibly brought to here … we said, but in vain. We try to listen to the administration’s radio, but it is so scratchy that it gives us a headache. All that expense, all that equipment, zero workmanship. A classic of Turkey. Just now, the novel The Brothers Karamazov was being read on TRT1 Radio. The reader reads very well, almost like a voice-over. But you can’t understand anything over the scratching. I switched it off. We can barely listen to the news.
By the way, the system here is almost the same as the system you described (at the time) in Belgium. There is a big window at the door, when I was in hunger strike, they used to come and check every 2 hours. Now they check every now and then. The doors are not like in other prisons, there is no handle, they do not open mechanically, like in US films, when the door is to be opened, the guard tells the cell number, and they open it from the centre. I wonder what will happen if there is an earthquake and the power goes out.
There must be a safety precaution! Otherwise, we’ll be trapped inside. In other prisons there is an emergency button to call the guard. Here there are two separate buttons on the door. One is for emergencies, it says emergency on it, for health problems etc. The other is a push-to-talk feature. When you have a question, you press the button and speak through the diaphone. A technological door! I guess they shouldn’t let them watch too many American films!
They also gave me a paper about the improvement programme (which I started to use a lot). There are categories such as work, sports, cultural and religious activities, etc. You get points according to the activity you participate in. If you fall below 40 points, you lose your parole, etc. Selçuk Kozağaçlı was given 37.5 points last time. He was expecting to be released in February, but since his score was not enough for release, he will wait for the evaluation 6 months later.
In other words, the conditional release is completely over for us. It means that the tretman is being applied.
In the past, it was called a rehabilitation programme, but when that did not work, it was revised and implemented as an improvement programme. If you look at it from a humorous point of view, they are like a zero teacher. (This is a teacher who always gives the student a zero, no matter what performance is delivered) So our situation is like ‘sit down, zero points’.
If Rıfat İlgaz were here, he would have written a series of Hababam cells (Rıfat Ilgaz is a Turkish writer, poet, and journalist. He passed away in 1973 in Istanbul. Rıfat Ilgaz is particularly known for his humorous works and social critiques. His work titled ‘Hababam Sınıfı’ is one of his most well-known and beloved pieces. ‘Hababam Sınıfı’ narrates events that take place in a school, especially in a classroom, in a humorous manner).
I have been referred to the hospital for health checks.
Let’s see what kind of obstacles we will face here. It’s probably a generalised practice to deny the right to treatment. You said something to my brother about the resistance. He didn’t quite understand. He says how are you going to do hunger strike, you’ll be gone in two days, two days or five days…
When there’s no other way left..
I will write again next week. I send my greetings and love to you from all of Çorlu, especially Kadir and Ahmet.
Take care of yourself, greetings to everyone
Fikret
* By the way, it’s morning, I checked the yoghurt, it’s successful. It’s like a rock.
A STORY OF DEPORTATION – ROUTE KARATEPE WELL TYPE
31 January 2025, Friday. That day is my defence day.
On Friday morning between 09.00-12.00 Ali and I go to the computer room for preparing our defence.
We went there at 09.00. At around 11.00 the chief warder, a few guards and a civilian entered the room. Ali Aracı! It’s me! Fikret Akar! It’s me!
Everyone is looking at each other. It’s obvious something’s going on, but what is it?
The civilian was a doctor. He checks with his eyes whether we are healthy enough to travel.
The doctor, who is extremely talented, examines us with his super-powered eyes and reports within 5-10 seconds that we can travel.
What’s wrong, is there something wrong… we say to the guard.
He says ‘transfer’ with an eyebrow-eye gesture. Understood.
The expected moment has arrived. I have been waiting for this moment for exactly 15 days, because exactly 15 days ago, on 17 January, 3 of our friends were deported.
Generally, a group is deported first, followed by a mass deportation. According to our friends, this was the practice in Silivri.
The deportation on 17 January took place at around 07.30 in the morning, before the count.
Slogans, door beatings. We collected all our belongings in the cell, put them in rubbish bags and waited for them. No one came. Since that day, our belongings are always in bags.
I use our needs by taking them from the bag. So I’m waiting for a transfer at any moment.
And here came the good news on 31 January! At 12.00 we returned to the cell.
Apparently, all the cells were visited, and everyone was told who would be exiled.
Only two friends saw where they would be deported from the list. Later we learnt that one of them was mistaken. In other words, it was clear who was going to be deported and where they were going to be deported.
Of course, this situation causes an excited, tense waiting. Comments, guesses, teasing each other in the cell. I guess that I will most probably go to the well type. Well, which one? The country is full of well types. From Erzurum to Izmir, from Antalya to Kırşehir, which one?
We were thinking that the deportations would take place immediately on Friday, but we were told that they would take place on Saturday morning. On the last day we were given the honour of being able to say goodbye to each other, which is a luxury for exiles.
Normally at breakfast, morning walk etc. dozens of guards fill the cell and they drag you out of the prison, either carrying you on their hands or dragging you on the floor. You are not even allowed to collect your belongings. That’s why our belongings have been waiting in garbage bags for 15 days.
Only our cell will be emptied in our corridors. So, the three of us are travellers. From the other cells, one person stays in each cell, two are travellers. So, we have to empty the cell. A feverish work begins. We pack everything in the cell to send to the neighbours in the form of clothes. Of course, this is not so easy. We are sweating like soggy sweat. But we send everything that can be sent.
A fight between us to share things! You take the radio, you take the alarm clock, you take the unpacked food, no, what am I going to do with all that stuff, you take it…
We were stuffing things in each other’s bags…
And the day was over. Greetings were exchanged, food was eaten when the doors were closed. A farewell night event in honour of the passengers. Shared emotions, promises made, folk songs sung, poems recited and jokes and banter that were never lacking. The volunteers are ready to travel, the remaining stars will now wait for the volunteers to form a new team. Silivri is the prison of celebrities. For ordinary guys like us, it’s a transit point. It was an enthusiastic, emotional farewell event. Emotions were already a waterfall; it was high enough to explode the sets. The last slogan and door beating action in Silivri at 22.00 h after the event. And farewell chat with the cellmates, wishes, warnings. It’s time for bed. We need to be energetic in the morning. Because it will be an eventful day with many uncertainties.
And morning! It is the first day of February, a warm Saturday morning, almost like the first spring. We got up early in the morning because we didn’t know what time they would arrive. We got up at 06.00 h, brewed our tea, had breakfast. We’re doing our last checks. I’m keeping an eye on our water. We have 16 5-litre bottles of water left. It’s a pity there’s no one left in the cell, the water is left to the administration. They’ll sell our water back to our friends!
Good thing we were early. Before the count, we heard slogans and banging on doors. We are ready, we are waiting. They went into the next cell, it’s our turn. ‘All three in this room will be taken’ came from the corridor. In the meantime, we sat in the middle of the cell, arm in arm. The door opens.
A crowd of prison guards poured in. They grabbed our arms, pulled us apart and started dragging us. The journey has begun! They started to drag us by chanting the slogan ’Deportations, Forcible Transfers Cannot Break Us’. We went to the prison yard from the C-6 corridor. The three of us are dragged along, one after the other, like a convoy, chanting slogans. We arrived at the observation room. We got up and went in. There’s Deniz inside. He is hobbling. When he was being taken out of the cell, a guard stepped on his ankle while he was holding on to the stair railing. We hug, we salute the people near us. Who came, who went, who is where, who is going where… conversations. Those are going to Kandıra, those are going to Tekirdağ… Us!? It’s not clear yet. They’re taking Deniz too, Tekirdağ No 2.
Meanwhile, our female comrades are dragged in front of us. They chant the same slogan. After some waiting, Ali was followed by Nesimi.
Nesimi to be sent to Kandıra No. 2. If they let him go, he’d go running, what’s the need for deportation! Ahmet is calling from the side. ‘Fikret Abi, we are going with you to Çorlu Well Type.
Open parenthesis here. The well type is guaranteed. If it wasn’t Erzurum! The cold on the one hand, the distance on the other. And Çorlu. Why? A friend told me in a conversation that there were structural problems in the electricity and water installations of Çorlu Well Type, that the water and electricity were frequently cut off, and that he did not want to go there for this reason, but other places did not matter. Close parenthesis.
Ah, now it’s done. The door’s open, no more uncertainty, we’re relieved, the route is Corlu.
Our belongings were brought under the door. I didn’t have my basins! I had prepared two basins to take. We turned the place under the gate upside down, nothing! The guards, not believing it themselves, said, ‘If it is found, if it comes out from somewhere, it will be sent later’. It is more likely that the sun rises in the west. Another guard says, ‘After all, one of your mates took it by mistake, there is nothing to do…’. This is a more logical explanation.
Just then I see Ali’s bath bucket lying there. The bath bucket is not important, it’s the contents that matter. BOOKS. Ali had put the books in the bath bucket to protect them from damage. They forgot that bucket there, Ali was already on his way. One of the guards says, ‘I wonder if we can call Araci, if it’s no too late”. (Araci is the surname of Ali)
The one next to him says, ‘They’ve already left, we can’t reach them.’ The books are left. At one point I wondered if I should take them. When the guard said, ‘We’ll send them somehow,’ I gave up. Otherwise, I would have taken them and sent them to Ali by cargo. Now I wish I had taken them. But at that moment, in that turmoil, you can’t think clearly.
The gendarmes are in a hurry. Come on, load the stuff, hurry up… They’re more excited than we are. We loaded the stuff in the boot of the ring. One 50-litre dustbin and two garbage bags. That’s everything I own.
I will be travelling in such a comfortable ring vehicle for the first time in my life, with exceptions.
Generally, ring vehicles are extremely dirty, stuffy vehicles with a tiny window, 6 seats for 6 prisoners in an area of one metre by one metre, i.e. one square metre, where your knees stick to the seat in front of you when you sit down, and you cannot move at all after you sit down. When I travel in these vehicles, it takes me a day to come back to myself. For this reason, for prisoners, ring vehicles are the vehicles in which compulsory journeys such as hospitals and courts turn into torture. This vehicle is a 12-seater minibus called a half bus. The car was already full, they had already boarded the young friends. Okan is going to Tekirdağ No. 1. I envy him. He is going to the prison where a quarter of my life has passed. We embrace, I say our greetings to the friends there. Deniz is with him. He’s going to Tekirdağ No. 2. We embrace him, too. We extend our greetings through him, too.
And young friends. Our friends whom we said good morning every morning and good evening every evening for 40 days, whom we met by shouting from the door, with whom we chatted but never saw their faces. We hug them all one by one and meet them again! I am Ahmet, I am Anıl, I am Kadir…And Doğan, my friend of almost 20 years in captivity. And another friend called Imam is brought with us. We’re from the same case (case means here political line)! We didn’t know him. We quickly get to know each other. He was sentenced for his social media posts; in fact he completed his sentence in Silivri. His release is exactly 8 days away. In 8 days he will be released, and they’re putting him in a well-type prison?! We are not surprised.
The engine was switched on, the wheels started to turn, the route was Karatepe… Conversations on the road, greetings… Doğan says to the young people, ‘First we will drop you off in Tekirdağ and then we will go to Çorlu’. ‘How do you know?’ the young friends asked. ‘I have travelled this road for 7 years to the court, I have memorised it…’ Well, you can’t beat the word of those who know. After a bit of travelling, the fog is getting thicker. We had no chance to see outside. The road is lush green, there are vineyards, gardens and fields everywhere. For some reason, they always build these huge prisons and prison campuses on agricultural lands. It must be because of the low cost of land. But then, with the increases in food prices, that cost is multiplied many times over on the backs of the people. Who cares?!
Then about 45 minutes passed, and a campus appeared in the distance. Doğan said to the young people, ‘Let’s drop you off and we’ll continue’ and started to say goodbye. Meanwhile, I read the sign at the entrance of the campus: KARATEPE HIGH SECURITY…
I said Dogan, we are here, this is Karatepe. Doğan said, ‘So they built a new road, they changed the roads…’. We laughed. We hugged Okan and Deniz one last time and got out of the vehicle.
Of course, before getting out of the vehicle, we said to our friends travelling to Tekirdağ, ‘Prepare our place, we will not stay here long, we will come to you…’. They said, ‘We are waiting for you, don’t prolong the separation…’. Whether it’s in three or five times, even if we can’t predict the duration, it’s certain that we won’t stay here for long. We took our belongings and stepped into the new focus of resistance with the slogan ‘We will not surrender to Well Type Isolation’.
This story does not end here. It is just beginning!
06.02.2025, Çorlu
