Halil Savda

Halil Savda

"I burned those letters that they cannot find…"

Report about a house search closed to Cizre, Turkey

by Halil Savda

(02.06.2017) Green greyish two cars ... Both of them were armored and khaki coloured men quickly entered the village road. Right next to the village mosque is the single-storey house in front of the car that took off.

They ran one by one with their long barreled weapons.

Almira and Menessa saw the gunmen jumping off their cars.

Almira is three and Menessa is five years old.

They left their games.

The men in khaki coloured uniform surrounded the house.

Menessa took Almira by the hand and quickly went to the bottom of the pomegranate tree in the range where the house and the stables intersected. They hugged to the pomegranate tree’s truck.

With their long barreled weapons, they climbed the ladder of the house with fast and hard steps.

Ranked one said, “Where is Halil Savda?”

When he received the answer “no at home”, he said to the soldiers who were next to him, “Look everywhere”. They looked everywhere in home; the barn, cellar, rooms…

When they could not find me, they started looking for a “criminal tool”.

Hundreds of letters have been examined one by one. They could not make sense the letters first then looked more carefully. All were written in other languages.

They called a man who could read English. Nevertheless, they do not understand anything; there were also writings in Hebrew, French, Spanish and Arabic languages.

They examined letters and cards for a long time.

They made a search at home for two and a half hours.

They took and gone with my photos, some solidarity letters and some reports of Amnesty International, the International War Resisters, the UN Human Rights Committee and ECHR.

All to the good, they did not find thousands of letters and cards that Amnesty's volunteers sent for solidarity with me.

If they find, in my mother’s words, 'they would not leave home until the night’.

I talked on the phone;

“Their purpose is to take you”.

She does not neglect to say as "Be careful”.

She says, “I burned all those letters they cannot find”

“But why?”

“If they come back again ...! The children are very scared.”

“They will not leave the house all day if they see these cards.”

A granny was forced to burn your beautiful letters; so those armed, hard-look men who dressed in elongated black boots would not scare the grandchildren again!

Sorry friends!

They just waited under the flowering Pomegranate tree.

Their mothers were looked around when they could not see them;

“I found them while waiting under pomegranate tree as hugged each other and hugged to the tree," she says.

Two small hands received power from each other and from the Pomegranate tree.

What do they think for so many minutes?

Ahhh my dears.

Their uncle is soldier due to mandatory public service.

When Menessa saw a military vehicle, she said "my uncle’s car," Almira waves her hand to the car in previous week, and this time they were afraid of the men wearing her uncle's clothes on her uncle's car.

In a decision to search my house phrased as “the investigation being carried out on charges of membership in the armed terrorist organization”.

Cizre Public Prosecutor's Office suspects that I am a member of "armed terrorist organization".

Have a heart…

I am against all forms of violence and weapons, but they are trying to make me a member of armed organisation.

Do not eat...!

It does not hold calliper.

They search criminal material in my home.

The material they found, but does not the kind of they wanted.

Indeed the second day of the search, they returned the photos, letters and reports they had handed back to my lawyer.

The summary of proceeding of the Cizre Public Prosecutor's Office is soon emerging.

Summary of proceeding comprised by the articles what I have written on Yeni Özgür Politika newspaper and some to the internet sites, from the press releases and some democratic activities that I participated in the struggle for rights

Where do I know?

170 journalists are in prison and almost all of the crime summaries of Turkey in 2017 are comprised of such things.

Writing is the most legitimate effort.

Right struggle is the most legitimate work.

Stubborn against to tyrant, I will continue to write, seek words, produce and seek rights.

Summary will fill more!

Halil Savda: ‘Bulamadıkları o mektupları yaktım...’ Juni 2, 2017.

Keywords:    ⇒ Human Rights   ⇒ Prosecution   ⇒ Turkey