The statement of Gökhan Yildirim who was released yesterday, on the 255th day of his death fast resistance for the release of sick prisoners, end of right violations, isolation, disciplinary punishments in prisons, against the prosecution and prison sentences based on digital material and secret witnesses’ and confessors statements….
This is the translation of Gökhan’s statement:
Gökhan Yaldırım:
“Welcome everybody! I feel the enthusiasm of being together like this once again with all of you, of coming together one more time.
First of all, I want to start by forwarding the Salutes of all comrades in prison. I started my march on 25th December 2021. Why did I take this path? Because there was an unfair judgment. They gave me 46 years. 46 years!
We objected to all steps regarding the 46 years sentence, but they did not accept any of our objections.
What did they give the punishment for? For opposing drugs, prostitution and gambling.
Exactly 46 years. We objected there, but there was no turning back. We tried every way so that the sentences would be removed.
They did not present a single concrete evidence to remove this injustice. Because there wasn’t any, they didn’t have it.
Even though we have so much concrete evidence, even though we have a camera recording.
Two kilos of drugs were found in the house of a man who abused his daughter, and he killed a friend of ours. One guard residual.
But they gave us the punishment. We have not forgotten any of them. All of these have grown into grudges for us. Because we lost our own friends, our own comrades from all of these. That’s why we say… We set out on the same road as them. Therefore, a lot could be done, a lot could be said.
But we said this: Of course, what was to be done against so much injustice, so much unlawfulness – was to resist.
I did everything during his trial. We tried every step but it didn’t work, we couldn’t get it down. There was only one thing left to do, and we said “Our Body is Our Evidence” and I set out on December 25th in 2021, I started a death fast. Sibel started a week before me.
A week later, I started the death fast. And today is the 256th day, we continue to resist with our hunger for 256 days. Our big family was with us for 256 days, they did everything they could. And a lot of things happened at this stage. There were many arrests, attacks, many attempts to ban our actions, they tried to prevent us from carrying out actions.
… When they took me to the hospital, they took me there to intervene by force. They kept me in the intensive care unit for 1 month, they waited for me to faint for 1 month so that they would intervene in the intensive care unit. But I didn’t faint for a month. We did not meet their expectations.
It was not the first time we witnessed this, but they repeated it. They said that I was eating. They said “Gokhan Yildirim is eating.. He took 300 grams. He takes 700-800 grams of calories a day”.
We have never forgotten this, we will never forget it, because this is an attack, this is not the first time. This they did to our friends in all death fasts before that. We know what these attacks mean. They did it to me today too.
Maybe they will do it to Sibel tomorrow. They will do it to Ileri…
But we will not give up. Because we are one big family. Because we resist.
… They did it to us all the way back in ’84. They’ve been doing it ever since. They did it in ’96, they did it in 2000, and they do it today.
But we have kept our heads high, our honor, and we have continued to resist. And today we still continue. And for this reason, I am on a death fast. Death fast means that this can include the death in some place. Yes I know. We can die at any time, at any time in the process. I could die at any stage of this process. Maybe I could have died by now. Maybe I could have died in 5 minutes. It does not matter. But in the end, I set out on this road, and now I’m standing.
…
We don’t want to die. We have a demand, what was our demand: A fair trial. Let there be a fair trial, let’s not die.
Mustafa is dead. Helin, İbo, Ebru were all martyred. It is very simple, that is, all of them were martyred in the resistance. I can fall too. For example, Ibo was martyred after winning the victory.
When we started the resistance, everyone said: Will you die again? You set out with death again, isn’t it enough?
No, we didn’t say that. We said, ‘we set out to get a fair trial, not just to die. Don’t think like that’.
…
And for 256 days, our families, our friends, our lawyers, our comrades, did everything they could for our usurped rights. And thanks to this struggle, as of the 255th day yesterday, a decision was made by the Forensic Medicine. The first decision of Forensic Medicine did not give release, you all know, they did not release me. The hospital had to refer me again. In the hospital I stayed in their hands. They said ‘he’s eating’, it didn’t work. They said ‘we will send him to the R Type prison’, it didn’t work. They couldn’t get rid of me either..
They referred me to the Forensic Medicine again. I was released at the forensic medicine. But it wasn’t the Forensic Medicine that let me out. I was released thanks to our struggle, our insistence, our determination, our shouting together, our shouting for 256 days.
The Forensic Medicine did not release us, we won ourselves and we were released as of yesterday. We have a long process ahead of us. Now Sibel continues, İleri continues. Today, I pause this resistance on the 256th day. ..We’re announcing it today. We won this together. Sibel, İleri continue. They will continue. Now it’s my duty to make their voices heard. I am among you. We will make their voices heard. We will continue their demand.
In other words, even if I do not continue with the death fast, we will continue it together. Because these are our needs. The Death Fast is our ultimate form of winning.
We all won together. We took back our brother Hasan from inside. We’ll get the others, I believe. And this is why our resistance continues. It continues on one side. I’m just pausing it.
This is what we have to announce today.
I call on all of our people: If you want to win, if you want to get something, resistance is the way to go. We cannot gain anything without resistance.
Here is our living witness, our living witnesses continue. We did it many times and we won. For this, we have paid the price for a fair trial many times, and we continue to do so. I won a part of it today. Our friends continue.
We will embrace our friends, we will implement their demands, we will deal with them one by one….“
