British artist Banksy pays tribute to Kurdish artist jailed in Turkey
A mural unveiled in New York last week by anonymous British artist Banksy protests the continued imprisonment of Kurdish artist and journalist Zehra Dogan.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A mural unveiled in New York last week by anonymous British artist Banksy protests the continued imprisonment of Kurdish artist and journalist Zehra Dogan, sentenced last year in Turkey.
The British artist’s 70-foot-long mural, unveiled on Thursday, represents jail cell bars which count the number of days Dogan has spent in a Turkish prison.
Banksy has included a portrait of the Kurdish artist and journalist in his mural, seen peering out of one of the jail cells, with her left hand holding one of the bars (which also represents a pencil).
“Free Zehra Dogan” is written in the bottom right corner of the mural.
Above the mural is one of Dogan’s paintings which led to her imprisonment with the phrase: “Sentenced to two years nine months and 22 days in jail for painting this picture.”
Dogan still has 18 months left on her sentence and, according to a press release about the painting, she is unaware of the tribute by Banksy.
“I really feel for her. I’ve painted things much more worthy of a custodial sentence,” the anonymous British artist told The New York Times.
Graffiti artist Borf, who has also spent time in prison for his controversial work, contributed to the painting of Dogan’s tribute.
In March 2017, Dogan was handed her prison sentence 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.
A United Nations report the same month Dogan was sentenced revealed the extent of the damage in Nusaybin at 1,786 buildings destroyed, most of them apartments housing thousands of families.
