Pinar Selek : from judicial persecution to media defamation

by Béran­ger Domi­ni­ci

The Tur­kish jus­tice sys­tem’s relent­less pur­suit of Pınar Selek never ends. After four­teen years of pro­cee­dings, a new hea­ring is due to take place in ear­ly August. Recent­ly, a defa­ma­to­ry media cam­pai­gn has crea­ted new ten­sions in the case. A look back at a case that is symp­to­ma­tic of the autho­ri­ta­rian drift of the Tur­kish state.
An oppres­sor’s talent lies in his abi­li­ty to esta­blish his domi­na­tion without vio­lence. In other words, his power is exer­ci­sed all the more effec­ti­ve­ly when he cir­cum­scribes more pre­ci­se­ly the beha­viour of those he tar­gets, and when his objec­tives can be achie­ved without injunc­tions. In short, when it dis­cou­rages resis­tance. The unfor­tu­nate thing is that the strings — or the meshes — are too big, and all that’s left to do to make those who resist lis­ten to rea­son is to silence them.

Govern­ment by deter­rence

As I write these few lines, how can I fail to think of the « govern­ment by deter­rence » being imple­men­ted in Turkey1 ? Above all, how can we not think of its fai­lures : the sad chain of events that remind us that the Tur­kish regime is an autho­ri­ta­rian one, where fun­da­men­tal free­doms are under threat2. The method is very simple : it is based on a legal sys­tem that is suf­fi­cient­ly vague to allow the scope of repres­sion to be first exten­ded in the name of the « Tur­kish nation », pro­tec­ted by Article 301 of the Penal Code, which seve­re­ly punishes it’s deni­gra­tion. Then, and above all, in the name of the « fight against ter­ro­rism ». It is in fact by vir­tue of the anti-ter­ro­rist law, which, as is cus­to­ma­ry, makes it pos­sible to repress even poten­tial dissent, that jour­na­lists, lawyers, aca­de­mics, trade unio­nists and ordi­na­ry citi­zens who have also wan­ted to exer­cise their right to free­dom of expres­sion are cur­rent­ly being detai­ned.

In cases like these, the « Sta­te’s rea­son » can always rely on the natio­nal legis­la­ture, which adop­ted the law under which the repres­sion is car­ried out : there is a text, there are facts — the abuse of power comes through their inter­pre­ta­tion. But some sto­ries are per­plexing : some sto­ries where the Tur­kish sta­te’s stra­te­gy of exhaus­tion does not bother with such pre­cau­tions, and where its desire to achieve its goals may well lead it to take cer­tain liber­ties with rea­li­ty.

A look back at a symp­tom

Pınar Selek’s sto­ry is one of these. It is an approach that made Pınar Selek unde­si­rable : that of trying to unders­tand Tur­kish socie­ty by stu­dying its mar­gins. An approach to know­ledge that has always been dri­ven by a desire to act on the rea­li­ty she was dis­co­ve­ring : to act for women’s rights, against the living condi­tions of street chil­dren, against dis­cri­mi­na­tion against people desi­gna­ted as LGBTI, for recog­ni­tion of the Kur­dish and Arme­nian popu­la­tions and their his­to­ry. A deli­be­rate mul­ti­po­si­tio­na­li­ty, based on an unders­tan­ding of the sys­te­mic dimen­sion of rela­tions of domi­na­tion, and on which the Amargi3 asso­cia­tion she hel­ped to found is wor­king : LBGTI, anti-mili­ta­rist, femi­nist, Kur­dish, Arme­nian and other acti­vists come toge­ther. A grass­roots effort, mar­ked by cam­pai­gns and rein­for­ced by sym­bo­lic work aimed at chan­ging the way Tur­kish socie­ty looks at itself. This was clear­ly going too far : her com­mit­ment to the Kur­dish
ques­tion ear­ned Pınar Selek two years in pre-trial deten­tion, accom­pa­nied by tor­ture ses­sions. The main thing was to silence her. Howe­ver, there are checks and balances, and any depri­va­tion of liber­ty must be jus­ti­fied. This is what the Tur­kish state has been trying to do for more than four­teen years now, by trying to have her convic­ted for an explo­sion that took place in the spice mar­ket in Istan­bul, cau­sing the death of seve­ral people and inju­ring many others. On three occa­sions, Pınar Selek has been acquit­ted by the Cri­mi­nal Court, and on three occa­sions the pro­se­cu­tor has lod­ged an appeal4.

Lies to back up jus­tice

What is sur­pri­sing is not so much that the pro­se­cu­tor is making use of his right, but that he is doing so in defiance of the expert reports which, by inva­li­da­ting the hypo­the­sis of the cri­mi­nal ori­gin of the explo­sion at the spice mar­ket in Istan­bul, deprive the charge against Pınar Selek of any real basis. Simi­lar­ly, what is wor­rying is not so much the next hea­ring, which will be held at the begin­ning of August, but the cli­mate in which it will take place. Over the past few days, cer­tain
media out­lets, relying on more than ques­tio­nable sources, have embar­ked on a smear campaign5 that brings back very sad memo­ries : short­ly before his mur­der in Janua­ry 2007, Hrant Dink was also the tar­get of such mali­cious atten­tion. How can we unders­tand this new context ? How can we fore­see its conse­quences ? These are the ques­tions facing Pınar Selek today. Since the appli­ca­tion of the law is essen­tial­ly its inter­pre­ta­tion, and since this inter­pre­ta­tion is made by judges who are no less affec­ted by what is said and writ­ten around them, how can we not fear that these lies, if repea­ted enough times, will end up influen­cing
it ? Worse still, by len­ding cre­dence to the image of Pınar Selek as an « ene­my of the nation » that the Tur­kish state is trying to pro­ject, this media cam­pai­gn could encou­rage cer­tain extre­mist groups to take the fight to them, or even to take the law into their own hands6. For­tu­na­te­ly, we have not rea­ched that point. And it’s not a ques­tion of playing the bird of ill omen — sim­ply of making eve­ryone face up to their res­pon­si­bi­li­ties.

A govern­ment that unjust­ly impri­sons

Let’s get back to the heart of the mat­ter : Pınar Selek still lives with the hea­vy thought that she could end her days in pri­son for a non-existent act ; dozens of people have been arres­ted and pla­ced in deten­tion sole­ly on the basis of their poten­tial dangerousness7. Of course, we can repeat with Hen­ry Tho­reau that, under a govern­ment that impri­sons unjust­ly, the place of the just man and woman is in pri­son, but that will never be much conso­la­tion. The ques­tion remains : how far can the Tur­kish govern­ment go too far ?

1 : We here repeat the words of Etienne Copeaux — essen­tial­ly to encou­rage you to read his very
sti­mu­la­ting ana­ly­sis : http://www.susam-sokak.fr/article-le-gouvernement-par-la-dissuasion-oui-la-turquie-est-un-modele-88613794.html

2 : The joint report by the Inter­na­tio­nal Fede­ra­tion for Human Rights and the World Orga­ni­sa­tion
Against Tor­ture is ins­truc­tive in this res­pect : http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/obsrapporttr05062012eng.pdf

3 : « Amar­gi » is a Sume­rian word (not Tur­kish, Kur­dish or Arme­nian) mea­ning « free­dom ».

4 : For a chro­no­lo­gy of events up to 2011 :
https://pinarselek.fr/img/PDF/chronologie_proces_PINAR_SELEK.pdf

5 : Pınar Selek is por­trayed as a ter­ro­rist with close links to the PKK.

6 : Once again, we can only refer you to the article by Etienne Copeaux, who, refer­ring to the attacks on Akın Bir­dal and Hrant Dink, adds that « in this way, the state dele­gates repres­sion and vio­lence. It can then wash its hands of it by disow­ning and condem­ning the mad­man or extre­mist, but the damage is done, and moreo­ver the sen­tences han­ded down are often shor­te­ned ».

7 : the sto­ry of the pre­ven­tive cus­to­dy of Sevil Sevim­li, a Fran­co-Tur­kish student sus­pec­ted of belon­ging to an armed ter­ro­rist group, the absur­di­ty of which will even­tual­ly be admit­ted, is just one of many unfor­tu­nate symp­toms of the autho­ri­ta­rian drift of the Tur­kish state.