We received the following letter from Nudem:
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