Testimonial

Pınar Selek: “Türkiye is like one huge prison.”

A story of resistance

Pınar Selek is a sociologist, researcher, feminist and anti-militarist activist from Türkiye. She grew up surrounded by prison, in particular through accounts from her father, who was imprisoned for nearly five years following the 1980 military coup. She became involved in social struggles and led an oral history project on the Kurdish movement. This work led to her arrest in July 1998. When she refused to provide the names of her Kurdish contacts, she was tortured then imprisoned on the basis of false allegations. Although she was released in December 2000 and acquitted four times, she is still waiting for her final and conclusive acquittal.

A testimonial in two parts. Part 1.

Attention, this article mentions acts of torture and may be disturbing to some readers.

My sister and I grew up surrounded by discussions about prison.

They opted to inflict physical pain on me. But I resisted, one minute at a time.

Helping each woman also helped us.