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Letter from jailed BDP deputy Gulser Yildirim on hunger strike

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