We had high hopes for 2021.
Since we were all locked at home because of the nightmarish Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, we had overloaded the New Year with meaning.
Traditional wishes such as money, career or world peace were left behind, instead on New Year's Eve the longing for a year off without masks prevailed in all New Year's wishes.
On the Turkish version of the column
Yazının Türkçe orijinalini okumak için tıklayın
But we residents of Turkey had another desire for freedom than the rest of the world. A statement by President Erdogan, who turned the country into an open-air prison, in November 2020 gave us hope for more freedoms. Let us remember what Erdogan had promised for the year 2021, which he postulated as the "year of reforms": "Free individuals, a strong society, a more democratic Turkey."
When it was promised in November, the destination was less than two months away. This time would fly by for those thirsting for democracy and the rule of law. It was like that in the end. We already woke up in the new year. Of course, we didn't expect a sudden “transformation” like the one Kafka's hero Gregor Samsa experienced. We didn't even hope that the winds of democratization and freedom would blow in one fell swoop. But a light breeze of democracy should have refreshed the country. Unfortunately, behind the legendary Mount Qaf, democracy remained inaccessible. Rather, students were arrested in the first weeks of the “reform year” for protesting against the rector of their university appointed by Erdogan. Some of them went to jailothers were placed under house arrest with electronic shackles.
So he hasn't forgotten the year of reform after all
We were about to let go of our hopes for the “year of reform” when Erdogan announced the “Human Rights Action Plan” at the beginning of March and explained what would be implemented and how. So he hasn't forgotten the year of reform after all, we tried to console ourselves, he was probably just fine-tuning the details. Soon afterwards, however, we learned once more what a big mistake it is to have hopes in this country. Around two weeks after Erdogan's announcement of the action plan, parliamentarian Ömer Faruk Gergerlioglu was withdrawn from MP by the Kurdish party HDP. His major offense was forwarding a message on Twitter. He holed up in parliament, but a few days later the police took him out and took him away. The judge sent him behind bars.
There was no escape from the anger of the “reform year” for either students or MPs. They were deprived of their freedom because of primordial democratic demands or activities. If, on the other hand, they had participated in a massacre that killed around 1,700 people, they might have gotten away with less punishment. Just like the IS terrorist Arkan Taha Ahmad. It emerged that the Ahmad wanted by Interpol had been hiding in Turkey for some time. How he got to Turkey in the first place is a matter of its own, let's leave it aside. Let us rather look at the sentence to which the Turkish judiciary sentenced Ahmad, who participated in a massacre, to last week. Are you ready? The sentence was two months of house arrest. There is room in the prisons for peoplewho post a tweet about Erdogan, but our judiciary is sending a frenzied terrorist home!