Nudem’s guitar: third station

Nudem’s guitar has gone through another station on its hike. Here the great SONiA disappear fear plays her song “A VOiCE FOR NUDEM”. She wrote it for Nudem and also included Kurdish text passages.

 

Nudem’s guitar: second station

Christoph Scheffler plays “Der Pfahl” (“L’Estaca” by Lluís Llach) in the version he has translated into German. He plays the piece on the guitar, which goes from hand to hand and ends up in prison at Nudem Durak. The guitar shall be the replacement for Nudem’s original guitar, which the prison staff has destroyed.

 

The concert

The concert on September 8th was a moving experience for all participants. Impressive was the wide range of different styles of music that shaped the evening. We have learned that Nudem Durak’s family was able to follow the concert live on Facebook. Nudem could not, of course, but she knew that a concert was being arranged for her that evening.

Banana Concrete
Elbe3 and David Steffen
Lara and Christoph Scheffler

SONiA disappear fear
Frollein Smilla
Claus and Susanne

Further attacks by prison staff

On September 27, Nudem could call her brother. She reported increased attacks by the prison staff.
We have already reported that some time ago all the musical instruments were taken away from her and that her guitar was destroyed.
Nudem announced that now all her books have been taken away too.

Psychologically breaking the prisoners

On the day of our concert, we got news from another prisoner from Bayburt Prison, where also Nudem ist imprisoned.
After a telephone conversation with his imprisoned sister Zeynep Erdem, Musa Erdem reported that sick prisoners were not allowed to go to the doctor. There are cell raids in the middle of the night. The director has been transferred from the prison Kandira to Bayburt and wants to enforce military drill with the prisoners. The prisoners are insulted and permanently disciplinary sanctions are imposed. The open visit time is shortened and the guards stand directly at the visiting tables and disturb. The supply of food and other basic necessities is totally inadequate. Thus, the prisoners are forced to cover their needs at extremely high prices in the canteen.

Everything is evidently aimed at psychologically breaking the prisoners.
We call: Write letters to the prisoners! Show them they are not forgotten! Spread information about their situation!
Here is the address of Nudem:

Nudem Durak
M Tipi Kapalı Cezaevi
Bayburt
Turkey

Bayburt Prison in desert-like surroundings far out of town

Concert for Nudem

The concert on September 8th was a great success. Here you can see the trailer again:

A new guitar for Nudem Durak

Last year, the prison staff broke Nudems guitar. We bought her a new one.
Various artists have played a song for Nudem on this guitar. And more artists will do so. The guitar will get passed on from one musician to the next.
Here you can see the first song for Nudem Durak by Elbe3.

 

Benefit concert Saturday 8th Sept 2018

Start: 7:00 pm
Admission: 6:00 pm
Bahnhof Pauli Spielbudenplatz 21-22, 20359 Hamburg
Advance sale: 9 €
Box office: 10 €
Tickets: Eventim

For the freedom of art!
For the freedom of music!
For the freedom of the people!

We sing, play and speak for Nudem Durak:

Banana Concrete
Elbe 3
David Steffen
Christoph Scheffler
SONiA disappear fear (USA)
Frollein Smilla
Claus & Susanne

Präsentation: Jörgpeter von Clarenau
Special guest: Leyla Imret

Leyla Imret was elected mayor in the city of Cizre, but was deposed by the Turkish central government. She will tell us about her encounters with Nudem Durak.

Photo from the prison

Here’s a picture Nudem sent us out of jail along with the letter we posted recently.
We blurred the faces of her fellow prisoners to protect their privacy.
But to be clear: everyone in the picture is laughing. We are very happy about that. But it’s a snapshot. That certainly is not the atmosphere that prevails in prison everyday life. That’s what she wrote in her letter.

On the back of the photo Nudem wrote: “Despite all this – laughter is nice : )”

Letter No 3 from Nudem

We received the following letter from Nudem:

Nudems letter

I greet you with love and respect with the warm heart of the peoples of the Middle East, who have been crushed by pain through history to this day.
Writing you from this my country under these difficult conditions gives me morale and motivation. That in the 21st century, in the country where I still am, in modernity, people cannot freely express their thoughts and their art means that you cannot speak of justice, law, or equality.
They might not even post this letter, that I am writing to you right now, or they may want me to censor it completely before they would pass it on. I am afraid that’s why I cannot express my feelings so easily.

Let me talk about myself for a moment: With each passing day, the conditions become more difficult, our living space is becoming narrower. Our fundamental rights, which we are legally entitled to, such as visitation, telephone, letter, etc., are prevented by the intense disciplinary punishments we receive. As if that were not enough, we are repeatedly put in solitary confinement as a punishment. You know that under these conditions, the freedom of expression is limited as well!

Everybody needs art. But I am being robbed of it extensively and excessively. I play several instruments, but I do not have one at the moment. They won’t give me one. They even took my Tef (drum), which was the last instrument in my possession. I would now have the chance to develop further artistically. I could use this process to deepen my artistic ambitions. But there is no alternative, no flexibility on this subject on the part of the (prison) management. Until recently, I still had my crayons as work material and limited painting utensils, but they took them away from me too. At the moment, I have nothing to do artistically, as you will have come to understand. I would like to end this subject with the words of a wise person: a personality that does is not touched by spiritual depth, spiritual richness, that is not influenced by music, landscape, various artistic behaviors, if these cannot be experienced by a personality, their lifelines have dried up.

I received the package you sent me. Many Thanks! It means a lot to me that you think about me. You made me happy. The sweatshirt suits me. But the shirts were too big for me. Thank you again. I wish you all the best for ever.
I send you a homemade bracelet and a picture I made with my friends. I hope you like it.

Warmly
Nudem Durak