The voice of a person is the deepest mirror of their conscience.
Children behind bars, lives lost in the Maritsa River… The silenced voices are the bleeding wound of societies drifting away from democracy. Cries gathering in the shadow of a justice gasping for breath, tiny whispers withering before they can ever bloom…
Today, Turkey is carving one of the most merciless chapters of its history, etching it upon the ages like a dark stain. For nearly a decade, it stands on the world stage as the epicenter of relentless, systematic tyranny. Darkness pursues more darkness, while silenced voices chase sorrow. We bear witness to a nation ravaging its homeland, its conscience, and the very dignity of humanity with its own hands.
Consciences have grown so dark that prisons now cradle hundreds of children who have never seen the sea, never set foot in a park, and have come to believe that those four walls are their home. Today in Turkey, nearly 759 children between the ages of 0 and 6 are growing up behind bars with their mothers.
In Turkey, every single day, innocent people are detained under the pretext of the July 15 coup conspiracy and kept in jail for months and even years…without any legal grounds. The courts have ceased to be halls of justice; they have become theaters of intimidation, suppression, and fear. Prison conditions, documented year after year in international human rights reports, grow only harsher, while unlawful torture inflicted upon inmates deepens in cruelty. Politicians, who ought to be the voice of the people, seek instead to shroud the injustice: when women bravely testify that they have been subjected to unlawful strip searches, they are silenced with words of politicians: “A virtuous woman would not wait a year to speak up.”
As the nation sinks further into darkness, the Maritsa River becomes the last hope for the innocent people who find no place to live. In its cold waters, countless souls searching for a breath of freedom merge with silent cries, weaving yet another link in the chain of lost voices. So thunderous is the voice of evil that even for those innocent children drowned in the Maritsa, they say: “So what? No big deal! Had they lived, they would have become terrorists.” Again and again, we are ashamed on behalf of all humanity.
Faced with such a horrifying picture, we believe that every whisper can turn into a cry. Every cry can lead the way to justice. Every conscience can revive a hope. This is what Advocates of Silenced Turkey stands for—it is the name of that very hope. It strives to be the voice of those across every corner of Turkey who no longer have the strength to speak up, whose voices have been deliberately erased.
It is the step toward building a society that is free-thinking, just, and free. It is, at times, the hope of a child reuniting with his father…The longing of a mother to embrace her child…The name of loyalty to Yusuf Kerim, to Teacher Gökhan, to little Ahmet Burhan.
To all who struggle against injustice, it says: “I am here, you are not alone!”
To make wounds visible, to stop them, and to contribute to the days when freedom will flourish, it stands firm. Through art, literature, human rights reports, social media and awareness campaigns; through monitoring legal processes, conducting research, and carefully documenting and publishing stories of victimization—it fights tirelessly on every front, with unyielding determination, to make the people’s voice heard.
Today, it calls upon everyone reading these lines to become advocates of a silenced, devastated, and deprived Turkey—deprived of freedom, of hope, of liberty, of unity and solidarity—and to remember your voice once more.
Every single voice can awaken thousands of voices that have been silenced.
Perhaps your word will wipe away a mother’s tears, perhaps it will brighten a child’s future. Remember that sometimes a single word can scatter great darkness and can change an entire life.
Do not let your silence cast shadows over innocent lives!
Be an advocate of the silenced Turkey!
Zeynep Hafsa Dayi
