[Music]
yes good evening everybody I want to
take you on a journey a journey that I
never planned for maybe I prepared for a
bit but the journey I take you to is now
into enlightening solidarity into deep
valleys of repression but also into
inspiration or in other words how to
become a hashtag how to meet inspiring
people you never thought you would meet
yeah how to run a half marathon on 15
meter rounds a lot of different things
in the end to stand on a red carpet so
yeah let me invite you to how to become
a hashtag and it all started in a place
which had as much light as here but it
was sunlight in the backyard of a little
hotel on the beauty other islands very
beautiful princess islands close to
Istanbul and we were asked to do a
training for human rights defenders by
the Turkish human rights platform on
dealing with stress and trauma and
digital integrity now you can imagine
some chairs standing around eight human
rights defenders who feel the pressure
of repression in Turkey
growing especially since it 2015 coup
and we're sitting there planning for the
day to come especially talking about
what kind of exercises I want to do on
dealing with stress and trauma getting
rid of emotions trying bear with the
burdens and suddenly the door gets
slammed open and 30 armed officers
stormed the room in the first moment we
don't know they're officers because they
are playing clothes they are all armed
and then they shout at us in Turkish
which I don't understand at that time
immediately one of the members
translates and says like this is a raid
we are going to be a
detained and we are not allowed to touch
anything
not our phones not our computers keep
sitting so we're sitting there then
there's this usual procedure of
collecting all phones or laptops
everything which is digital in the room
everything's filmed and there's a
process of identification and all this
and my brain just goes in like uh-huh
that's how it feels like and later I get
to know that one of the participants
thought well they invested a lot of
making this reveal roleplay it wasn't so
some hours later of identification and
checking our bags and all that one of
the participants says like and we're
sitting there in the circle and Peter
wasn't this a session on exercises of
dealing with stress and trauma I'm like
yes and she's like so what can we do
right now can you do an exercise with us
and just like well I've done a lot of
different workshops and different
settings but in the moment of a raid
where I'm arrested as well I never tried
that one so so just maybe to not to
prepare you but it was a very simple
exercise that came to me and I maybe I
just want to invite you to do it
together with me and maybe you know it
from your childhood you take your thumb
and your index finger together now maybe
just do it and then thump index finger
on top right I see some letters walking
up and then you walk the letters up so
for people who feel like I know it since
my childhood days it's not a challenge
at all you just walk through your
fingers and suddenly your brain starts
ah that's the other way it works so
that's the exercise I do with them did
anybody of you during the five 10
seconds that we did the exercise think
about that we're sitting at a TEDx talk
about terrorism no so that's actually
what these exercise can do with us
they're bring us to a different space
and they bring our mindset to a
different space and in this way our
whole body gets a different experience
for the moment we do these exercises
despite being raided
so what happens afterwards short moments
after we find ourselves in a police
station and a lot of to huva boohoo but
24 hours incommunicado that means we're
not allowed to call lawyers conciliate
or whatever in the same night
the other eight of us or the other the
eight human rights defenders were in the
training are taken to mainland Istanbul
to different prisons and illegal hawi my
colleague and friend and I we spent the
nights at buek other Island in this
little police station prison and it's
not a prison it's a police station that
has two cells for people who were over
drug take too much alcohol or suppose
terrorists so we are lucky because the
policemen also are not trained on how to
deal under the state of emergency with
terrorists since suspects so after 24
hours when the ban is lifted people are
allowed to visit us and this was already
the moment when we got to meet some of
the most inspiring and supportive people
for the whole period which took us 113
days into detention which worse illegal
team pickers
sure enough the civil society the human
rights society in Turkey the community
they knew where we are they knew that
this workshop is running it was a public
workshop so once they didn't get any
connection anymore via social media or
so to the other participants and also
our security check-in didn't help him
after 24 hours the same day so they got
on alert they called the hotel they knew
we were taking to the police station so
they informed immediately the consulate
all that happened and we got to meet
lawyers we never met before and it just
clicked and I knew these lawyers will go
through all the which might happen
and at that moment there was still this
thought of like how long is it actually
to going to happen the thing so we had
discussions and people said one night
does this just deterrence ever release
you your German your Swedish don't worry
you get out soon
after the second night there I felt mmm
maybe they're not getting out so soon
but we already had the exercise in the
first day and as I'm training since more
than a decade on dealing with stress and
trauma there were some routines which
really helped me and yeah one of the
thing or one of the inspiring people are
two extremely inspiring people we met
were the consulate people you know that
consulates in all countries have to
support their citizens okay they do this
normally in a very diplomatic and
political correct and so manner I was
lucky the two consulate staff who were
responsible for taking care of me and
other prisoners in the ýstanbul region
were really really caring and there was
a I think mutual inspiration so once
they asked me in a visit and they
managed to have it nearly all three four
weeks if you could imagine being an
animal in prison what would you be and
we had this thing of like these are
anyhow not normal prison visits for them
so they felt free to ask weird questions
and I thought like sure a bird just to
fly away and I thought like nah well
that's too easy so mine was the elephant
having a thick skin to everything what
happens but keeping the empathy with our
fellow prisoners around me which I
didn't know know before but also yeah
having the social approach to everybody
including the guards although I didn't
understand that most of the time and
they didn't understand me so this was
quite deep for me being in this contact
already now from the island who went to
the underground police station or it's
not an underground police station it's a
police press the DM in Istanbul called
Vuitton the fatherland and it has an
underground parking space which is
turned into an anti-terrorism prison and
their life is completely different
because
because 24/7 no sunlight but 24/7 light
and all the cells video surveillance all
the time
camera German brand nice corporation so
there's this check-in procedure and we
get separated into the different cells
and understand how these cells work
somehow and I get into my row and they
tell me f2 is my cell so the cells are
made for two people you might know from
your sports time at school these blue
rubbered mattresses that you use for a
high-jumping or so that you don't injure
yourself exactly these kinds two of them
smaller as bed and the third one is a
prayer mat a bit bigger my cell already
has three people and I'm a bit hesitant
to get in because I feel like well they
are already three so they push me in and
the other three immediately talk to each
other and free one of the beds and two
of them move to the prayer mat and then
they grasp easily that I don't speak
Turkish so they start translating they
talk to me and we start really getting
into contact and this was the first big
move of solidarity that I felt after the
lawyers in the consulate this solidarity
between US prisoners and under the
Terrorism laws in Turkey and especially
the state of emergency there are a lot
of people who are completely innocent in
detention
there are tens of thousands people
detained who never thought how to spell
the word terrorism properly but they all
end up in these cells so what do you do
there you have 24/7 you have no pens no
paper no book except one Quran per cell
nothing else to do and you're all
waiting
maximum 14 days then there the court has
to rule about you if you have to go into
detention or into arrest or if you're
afraid so the perspective of 14 days
nothing to do is not so inspiring and
I'm not a person to do nothing it just
doesn't work with me M
and I cannot even really get really
really bored so I thought about what to
do so we get some food which was
horrible
but we also get some bottles with water
and there's a wrapping around so if you
tear it in little bits and pieces and
you take three of these little bits and
pieces of little strings then you can
leave them and you can use them for
example as a belt because you had to
give away your belt you could hang
yourself I made the joke so the food is
not so bad to hang myself but still they
took my belt or his shoelaces and later
one of the prisoners fellow inmates
they asked me like can I take one of
these bands with me when I leave if I go
to detention or free he didn't know at
that point because it's a more resembles
for me that we were so much to vovan
together by this repression so he takes
them out and later we managed to smuggle
out many more of them and this
creativity somehow really gave me a lot
of energy and it showed me like you
don't have to be a victim in there you
can actually do something of changing
the atmosphere and that's what we then
did we started juggling with the bottles
so one officer said we are not here at
Circus Vuitton no sure we wasn't weren't
in a circus but there was a lot of
spotlight too so changing the atmosphere
was also very important actually this is
one of the band that I were weaving and
then from Vuitton we were brought after
two weeks after horrible court session
we were brought to another prison for
two weeks Ali and me were together there
and then the officers came in one day
after two weeks again and said you're
leaving you're leaving you're like oh
great perfect and then it took us
another five minutes to understand yes
to another prison so we were transferred
to Silveri prison which is one of the
spaces in Turkey with the highest level
of education there was a sociological
study because there are so many
academics detained there
and it's a huge prison by 15,000 inmates
and we got into block number 9 which is
a high-security prison and there are
things turned very challenging in the
beginning with complete one person
solitary confinement but lucky enough
after three days we went into two-person
solitary confinement that means 24 hours
a day together sharing the same space
the same toilet the same smells the same
sounds everything and a small yard which
is about 5 by 7 meters and I start doing
sports because you have a lot of time
right so what do you do things you
thought you never you always wanted to
do before you never had the time now is
the time to have it and then also there
comes this absurdity of of this whole
situation and I thought what would be
the most absurd form of sports that you
can do in there maybe long-distance
running and I knew that the Berlin
Marathon would approach and the decide
ok on the Berlin Marathon I'm going to
run a marathon here in rounds of 15
meters and we made it a public event in
solidarity of all political prisoners in
Turkey and it went roaming in Turkey and
it went roaming in Germany as well and
they established a lot of solidarity and
we had the solidarity with the lawyers
especially who became much more than
just legal representatives they became
friends psychologists social workers
asking do you need fresh laundry asking
high-step psyche and they had to read
the letters from a loved ones to me
which was very funny because they were
all written in German law mm-hmm but not
all the local lawyer spoke German so
their red letters they didn't understand
and then I had to translate them back to
them and we had a lot of laughter and
they also talked to me about the
Solidarity which is happening outside
and we had one hour per day per week to
meet and had 10 minutes to talk with my
loved ones every two weeks so very
confined
situation of intense solidarity and I
heard a lot of different ways of
solidarity and one words for example the
postcard letter campaign and I had
started off in the early early 90s late
80s in my human rights work as a
volunteer with MS international writing
these postcards against forgetting
prisoners and in the late 80s there was
one Turkish human rights defender lawyer
Harun Keskin and we wrote letters for
her because she was jailed at that time
so I always felt hey writing letters to
political prisoners this must feel good
inside I can tell you now it feels good
to receive them even if you don't
receive them so I didn't get one of the
postcards inside jail I got some of them
afterwards and this was really really
really inspiring for me to read these
solidarity messages but it also carried
me and then I heard from my lawyers
after everything was over after the 25th
of October 2017 that Aaron Castine was
actually an observer to our court trial
on the 25th which made a circle very
round to me but now last year this
picture was taken in front of the
Brandenburg Gate and she's in danger
again so we have to get our guts
together again and put up solidarity and
this is really a thing which is really
really important for me to have this
solidarity which touches me on very
different levels and I think solidarity
very often is a very heavy business
writing postcards but speaking up at
demonstrations or whatever but for me
it's also very creative post a process
so I had the chance after the release to
do some creative work as well and this
hemic is one of them the strings have
the imprinted solidarity messages that I
got I wrote them all down in the
computer then I printed them on 1.2
kilometers of string and then I noted
them into this one so
and it's actually one of my lawyers
testing the hammock and it's at the arts
bein ah so there are many different ways
we can deal with it and one of the most
important factors for me was also
solidarity inside the Turkish civil
society so when I was released in the
night this lights were gone off somehow
the media was somehow leaving and then a
woman approached me and said like Peter
your shirts really nice I thought like
what's the sorry we just released
it's still an awkward situation what do
you want to tell me and then she said
well I only knew your photo and I knew
your height and I bought all the
t-shirts red shirts whatever you wanted
as closes I bought them for you and then
we both burst out into crying and
hugging and for me it's a symbol of if
you want to share solidarity there's no
limitation that you have to be very
courageous or whatever there's a space
for any kind of solidarity for all
capacities that we all have and that's
something which I would really like to
share with you this idea of carries
resistance you can take care with their
small means that you have with a small
ideas that you have but don't stop from
them so from our struggle carries
resistance well-being is resilience and
I'm really happy I'm very grateful for
all of you that just by listening to me
sharing the Solidarity and supporting
the human rights defenders worldwide
thank you so much
[Applause]
you