Her art used as ”proof” of terrorism

“Will they jail me first or you?” This was the question me and my girlfriend, journalist and artist Zehra Dogan, were asking each other jokingly a few years back. With each journalist arrest in Turkey, we started asking the question in a more serious way. She was afraid that I would be the first, because I already have two court cases and many other prosecutions. At the same time, I was afraid that she would be first, because Kurdish journalists are being targeted more often. Last week, she was arrested and put on pre-trial detention.

Zehra Dogan, the owner of prestigious journalism awards in Turkey, is one of the few journalists who followed the war in Kurdish parts of Turkey for JINHA news agency - Turkey’s only women’s news agency. She was in the Nusaybin district of Mardin, where the military is imposing a 7/24 curfew for the last 5 months, until she was arrested. She wasn’t only writing news reports and stories, she was also making the paintings of the war. As far as I know, she’s the only painter who depicts the people and the landscape of the war torn cities of Turkey.