You’ve probably never heard the term prisoner of conscience. You probably don’t know that these people are jailed simply for their beliefs, and not because of any criminal activity. You probably don’t know all of the terrible torture these people often have to endure. You probably don’t know that you have an easy life compared to these people.
Many human rights groups define prisoners of conscience, a term coined by Amnesty International, as persons imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs. These are human beings, very real people, that are arrested simply for their language, culture, race, nationality, religion, and political ideology. After being arrested, they are detained, presumed guilty, never given a fair trial, or sometimes indefinitely imprisoned.
All of these actions violate numerous articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which has its 55th anniversary on December 10th. Unfortunately, most of these prisoners are often forced to endure extreme measures of torture.
Torture is despicable. It does not produce the results sought. Under duress it yields no accurate information. Instead there are other successful ways government officials can interrogate without dehumanizing people.
I’ve met sport stars and soldiers that people call heroes, but I’ve also been lucky to meet handfuls of prisoners of conscience. It is not only their inspirational stories that make them heroes, but also their ability to endure superhuman pain for a righteous cause.
The Zana family truly exemplifies the plight of prisoners of conscience. Leyla Zana is currently in her ninth year of detention in an Ankara, Turkey prison for peacefully commenting, “I shall struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live peacefully together in a democratic framework.”
Mehdi Zana, her husband, served eleven years in a prison because he advocated minority rights for Kurdish people in Turkey. He has been forced to flee to Sweden after his release, because he was threatened with more jail time. Rarely does he see his children who live in France, also forced out of Turkey.
Between husband and wife, they have spent twenty years in prison, despite their peaceful expressions. For most students at this college, twenty years is a lifetime. Through all these hardships, Mehdi Zana is still an activist in support of Kurdish human rights. On November 5th, Mehdi Zana, along with various translators, started a tour of the Northeast, speaking at Boston University, Brown University, Princeton University, as well as other locations in New York City and Washington DC.
The tour concludes around Thanksgiving, and is a reminder to be thankful for our plush living conditions. The torture that Mehdi describes is so horrible that it can not be ignored, but I also give caution because it is extremely graphic.
It’s difficult to understand the strained words of the translator, but calmly he explains Mehdi’s Kurdish words about his days in prison. They resemble the words from his book, Prison No. 5, “They took me to another room where they hung me up by my arms, nude, and attached electric wires to my genitals and anus. When they turned on the current, my whole body would tremble.”
It is almost impossible to listen. He next explains situations of being forced to eat his own stool. In a way I wanted to believe the translator meant something else. I wanted to believe he meant a chair or something.
Throughout his talk, Mehdi was friendly and never spoke with anger towards his torturers. I don’t know how, but he spoke to the translator with a smile, as the audience awaited the next words. He continues with stories of physical assault and the sexual abuse other prisoners received.
Throughout most of his talks, the rooms generally define silence. He confides in his book, “Sometimes they put us in a coffin, with just enough space to breathe, for two to three days.” It is not a metaphor or a translation error; he literally means a coffin, which is evident by his hand gestures.
Florinda Russo, actively involved with planning the tour described the Boston University event, “It was great to have Mehdi there and he was very well received and inspirational. [We] got a lot of great feed back.”
After hearing a Liberian and Chinese prisoner of conscience, followed by Mehdi Zana, it’s evident torture must stop. It is a problem in many countries around the world. Even America has decided to participate, in its own superior way. A popular Washington Post story quoted, an important government official, “We don't kick the [expletive] out of them, we send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them."
Researchers are unable to determine the prison conditions of Leyla Zana, but it is imperative that she be immediately released. Despite her time in jail, she took time to send a poetic letter along with her husband that includes these uplifting words, “I would like to thank you all for your tireless work on our case. Through our case, you have showed sensitivity to [the] brotherhood of people, peace, democracy and freedom.”
It is this peace, democracy, and freedom that must be applied to Leyla Zana, the Kurdish people, and the thousands of prisoners of conscience that exist.
Be the winds of change. Please care.
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Copyright 2004, Kevin Semanick