Two sisters from Etten-Leur went to Turkey in 2016 to perform with a band. Betül Varan (32), the oldest of the two, is now in Turkey a prison sentence of ten years and seven months. She received that punishment on appeal for terrorism. According to her lawyer, she was convicted on the basis of false testimonies. The younger sister was stuck for months, but was not convicted. Catrien Spijkerman and Emmie Kollau tell the story of both sisters in the podcast ‘Eenlijk Istanbul’ from media organization Human. The four -part podcast can be heard from Thursday.
Betül is stuck in a mega prison, just outside of Istanbul. She left for Turkey in 2016 to join the Turkish protest band Grup Yorum, as a flute player. Not long after, her sister, Bergün, followed her two years younger. Grup Yorum has been around for forty years and performs in varying compositions throughout Europe and its repertoire mainly consists of protest songs.
According to the Turkish prosecutor, the music group has ties with the DHKP-C, an extreme left group that regards the Turkish state as a terrorist organization. Members of the band are monitored with Haviksogen by the Turkish government and regularly arrested. Betül and Bergün were picked up in May 2017 and held on for months. Bergün was acquitted, but the case against Betül was continued to her final conviction.
Podcastmaker Emmie Kollau and investigative journalist Catrien Spijkerman followed the sisters in Turkey and their parents in the Netherlands for the podcast series for more than four years. According to her lawyer, the final conviction of Betül would be based on false testimonies. Anonymous witnesses would have stated that she was part of DHKP-C. This club is also considered a terrorist organization in the Netherlands.
“Turkey uses anti-terrorism legislation to silence critics.”
Human rights organization Amnesty International has been warning for years that Turkey uses anti-terrorism legislation to silence people or groups critically about the government. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not want to comment on individual matters. “We can’t get involved in the justice of another country, just as we don’t want other countries to mix in our judicial process,” said a spokesperson.
Grup Yorum is a political activist folk music collective that has been in existence for 40 years and has released 23 albums. With their songs, the musicians draw attention to injustice and oppression of, for example, the Kurdish people and they sing the ‘revolution’: their goal is a socialist Turkey. The group has a large number of fans and also regularly performs outside of Turkey, such as last fall in TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht.
The podcast Single journey Istanbul is here To listen to.