An author in Turkey’s most prominent newspaper Hurriyet, Soner Yalcin has testified to the European Court of Human Rights, and the Turkish Parliament with regards to unsolved murders.
Due to making news about the religious Fethullah Gulen movement, which is claimed to have efforts to conquer the AKP government, and the state of Turkey with its trained congregation, Soner Yalcin is arrested in February 14, 2011, and has been in the Silivri prison for 17 months for allegedly being a member of the terrorist organisation called “Ergenekon”. The evidence for the imputed crime are the word documents regarding state security in the computer of a news portal called Odatv.com, owned by the journalist Yalcin. Furthermore, he is accused of encouraging journalists like Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik to write books against Fethullah Gulen congregation!
According to the report by an expert group of Turkey’s three distinguished universities, and Joshua Marpet, an information technology and cybercrimes expert of USA Data Devastation, the word documents in the Odatv.com news portal’s computer have been sent through a virus.
Despite these reports, Soner Yalcin and 5 of his friends are still kept in prison. Life is hard in Silivri Prison where terror offenders stay; there is isolation, and he is not allowed to talk to other prisoners. The prisoners stay in wards for two people. They are being monitored through a camera 24 hours.
It is forbidden to have computers and typewriters in the wards. Under such dire conditions, journalist Soner Yalcin produced a handwritten book of 550 pages: “Samizdat, Are You Strong Enough to Handle the Truth?”
WHY SAMIZDAT?
The name of the book, “Samizdat” is appropriate for Turkey’s recent oppressive, anti-democratic, and political atmosphere. “Samizdat” is a Russian concept; it is the name of all books in the world that are written, published, and distributed under harsh conditions despite censure and oppression.
Soner Yalcin named his book this way, inspired by a chapter where Umberto Eco and J.C. Carriere talk about Samizdat in their 2009 book “N’espérez pas vous débarrasser des livres”. The Samizdat technique dates back to 14th Century France, as well.
Soner Yalcin talks about the lawlessness and the conspiracy that befell on him, as well as documents the stories of other oppositional people in jail who were put there by means of similar dirty tricks. Soner Yalcin writes about the traps that led to the imprisonment of the generals, officers, politicians, academics, authors, journalists whom were called “Eurasian” by the American diplomats as shown in the Wikileaks documents, and claims that there has been a civil coup in Turkey, in the shadow of the U.S.A.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the left wing main opposition party recommended to all the members of the parliament and his party members to read Samizdat in his speech at the party meeting in the parliament. Samizdat is distributed to the parliamentarians; certain claims in the book are made parliamentary questions in writing, and addressed to Prime Minister Erdogan. These questions have yet to be answered.