After spending more than three decades in Turkish prisons, the Kurdish writer Yaşar Aslan has been welcomed by hundreds of people in his town, Mardin (Mêrdîn). The now 50-year-old was arrested in Nusaybin (Nisêbîn) in early 1993, accused of "separatism" and sentenced to life imprisonment by the State Security Court in Diyarbakir (Amed). After thirty years and six months in prison, he was released on Monday from Tekirdağ 2 F-type detention center in western Turkey and arrived in Mardin on Tuesday.

Hundreds of people were waiting at the airport with flowers, including members of the prisoner aid association MED-TUHADFED and the "Peace Mothers" initiative. Green Left Party MP for Mardin Beritan Güneş, was also at the airport.

“Our hope was stronger than outside”

Aslan thanked for the overwhelming reception and gave a short speech underlining the poor prison conditions and the prisoners' expectations of civil society. “There are many problems in the prisons and our comrades there have great expectations of you. There are no legal standards, and the prisoners' lives are decided arbitrarily. At the moment, people often speak of an old and a new Turkey, but we were oppressed in the past and we are oppressed in the new Turkey too. We have always experienced oppression. But inside we at least spoke up and expressed our feelings. Outside, people can't even do that anymore. Our hopes and our demands were stronger than those of the people outside. We must increase hope and we must strengthen our resistance. In prison, you are at the mercy of state violence, but there is resistance.”

Aslan added: "Inside, they can take you anywhere at any time, but the people there defend their thoughts, they protect their hearts and minds. It should be learned from. If there is such resistance between four walls today, the resistance outside could be much bigger and better.”

Yaşar Aslan wrote the books "Rengbej" and "Sergovend" in prison.