Jailed Kurdish artists says Turkish guards destroy her paintings

Imprisoned Kurdish artist and journalist Zehra Dogan says Turkish guards have destroyed paintings she made while in prison.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Imprisoned Kurdish artist and journalist Zehra Dogan says Turkish guards have destroyed paintings she made while in prison.

“I am subjected to pressure mostly because of my paintings and drawings,” Dogan said in a recent interview, conducted via her lawyers, with online news outlet Gazete Karinca.

The imprisoned Kurdish artists said her “writings and drawings are thoroughly examined during searches by prison guards,” adding that “in most cases, they seized the pigments I derived from waste, bird feces, and menstrual blood.”

Zehra Dogan's depiction based on a photograph of destruction in the Kurdish town of Nusaybin. (Photo: Zehra Dogan)
Zehra Dogan's depiction based on a photograph of destruction in the Kurdish town of Nusaybin. (Photo: Zehra Dogan)

Dogan was handed a prison sentence in March 2017 for publishing her painting of destruction of the town of Nusaybin in the Kurdish province of Mardin which remained under an on-and-off curfew for months in 2016.

She was sentenced to two years nine months and 22 days in a Diyarbakir jail for painting the picture.

“They seized 20 of my paintings and told me, ‘It is forbidden, we disposed of them.’ What on earth does disposing of them mean? They are like disposing of a bomb,” she told Gazete Karinca.

A new work by Banksy in downtown Manhattan protests the imprisonment of Zehra Dogan. (Photo: The New York Times/Tony Cenicola)
A new work by Banksy in downtown Manhattan protests the imprisonment of Zehra Dogan. (Photo: The New York Times/Tony Cenicola)

Dogan has received support from fellow artists who disagree with her unjust imprisonment.

On March 15, 2018, British-based graffiti artist Banksy unveiled a mural in New York in tribute to the 29-year-old.

The British artist’s 70-foot-long mural represents jail cell bars which count the number of days Dogan has spent in the Turkish prison.

The imprisoned Kurdish artist recently sent Banksy a letter expressing her gratitude for the tribute as well as revealing the horrific conditions she suffers inside the Turkish prison.

“Far away from me and our people, it was the best reply to the crooked regime that can’t even tolerate a painting,” she wrote. “With your support, my painting now accomplished its mission of showing the atrocities.”

“People hear me more than ever, and while the rulers in these lands that speak the same language as me (because they forced us to learn Turkish) don’t understand me, the people in different lands that speak different languages understand me.”