Detention of Haydar Isik

This appeal of Dr. Zaradachet Hajo was published in the internet pages of the Kurdish PEN.

Appeal to the International and German Public to intervene against the Detention in Germany of the Kurdish Writer Mr. Haydar Isik

by Dr. Zaradachet Hajo, the President of the Kurdish PEN Centre

Bremen, Germany, 9th July, 2007


On 5th July, 2007, there have been large-scale search and detention operations in several German federal states aimed at the Kurds allegedly belonging and/or supporting the People’s Congress (Kongra Gel).

Amongst other detainees there is Mr. Haydar Isik, a prominent writer, one of the founding members and former President of the Kurdish PEN Centre. On the same day, i.e. 5th July, 2007, 69-years-old Haydar Isik, who is married and has three children, appeared in front of the investigating lawyer and was imprisoned on remand.

In order to realise Mr. Haydar Isik’s critical approach towards social and political situation in Turkey, which is a major topic of his numerous literary books, one would be advised to look into his biography. Mr. Haydar Isik’s homeland, a region called Dersim (Tunceli), that is populated by the Alevite Kurds, is one of the main centres of Kurdish resistance and as such has been subjected to the Turkish military aggression for dozens of years. Indeed, the Turkish state has continuously been exercising extremely brutal oppression of the local Kurdish population in Dersim.

In spite of repressions against his home region and its language and culture, Mr. Haydar Isik has never chosen the means of violence, not even in his young years. After having settled down in Munich, Germany, Mr. Isik started to work as a school-teacher in a junior high school and free-lance writer and journalist. It has to be pointed out that Mr. Haydar Isik had been teaching Turkish to the pupils and working as a columnist for several Turkish daily newspapers.
His first novel in Turkish entitled The Agha from Dersim would be banned in Turkey only three weeks after its publication. His next book The Destruction of Dersim has been published by late Mrs. Ayse Nur Zarakolu in Istanbul and won the 1998 Publishers’ Prize in the International Frankfurt Book-Fair. Yet, this book was also banned in Turkey. Mr. Isik’s other books have been created in Turkish and German. Remarkably, in a clear violation of the established freedom of opinion in Germany, one of his books would also be seized here.

Mr. Haydar Isik, who lives near Munich, has been often subjected to anonymous threats, blackmails and slander. Even the Turkish officials found it appropriate to take actions against one of his articles. We know Mr. Haydar Isik as a person with active vocabulary who has always been denouncing violence in all its forms. Neither in Turkey, nor in Germany has Mr. Isik ever used force. His only legitimate weapon of self-defence is writing. Therefore we are extremely surprised to learn about the alleged reasoning behind his arrest at the age of 69, as if Mr. Isik in any form supported violent actions of a banned Kurdish organisation. We suspect that by punishing Mr. Haydar Isik, a thorn in the eyes of the Turkish right-wing political circles, the German law and order institutions serve anew the Turkish state interests in the Federal Republic of Germany. As a result, Mr. Isik himself becomes a victim of the Turkish political attempts to show him as an offender.

It is rather conspicuous that it is the Federal Republic of Germany that more than any other European state tries to take measures against Kurdish organisations. This happens place against the background of a generally peaceful co-existence between Kurds, Turks and Germans in the country. It is worthy to note that for many years there have been no serious facts proving Kurdish violence against the German state and society. At the same time, around 800,000 Kurds living in Germany are not recognised as a distinct ethnic group, despite the 1991 decision of the Bundestag, the lower chamber of German Parliament.

We appeal to the International PEN Congress in Dakar, Senegal, as well as to German and international public opinion to intervene against the detention of the Kurdish writer Mr. Haydar Isik. We call on the German government not to privilege the Turkish interests on the costs of the freedom of opinion and immediately release Mr. Haydar Isik from custody.

Dr. Zaradachet Hajo