Video: Urgent protest for political refugee in France

English translation of the video statement in front of the prefecture of Créteil in France:

Hello everyone,

we are currently outside the Créteil prefecture to protest against the extradition decision against Zehra Kurtay.

Zehra Kurtay is a former Turkish political prisoner, a anti-fascist, former socialist journalist, who had been imprisoned in Turkey for her political views and journalistic activities.

She led a hunger strike against isolation between 2000 and 2007. She was subjected to torture by force-feeding.
As a result, she suffered after-effects.

In particular, she still suffers from Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. She suffered memory loss and physical after-effects.

Despite this, she managed to come here and take refuge in France so that she could recover from all these after-effects in 2007.
She was granted political asylum in 2007, and then in 2008 she was taken into police custody in France for the same reasons for which she had been granted political asylum in 2007, a year earlier.

And after she was taken into custody, in fact, a trial was opened, and she was tried and sentenced in 2012 to 5 years of imprisonment.

She served 3 years, if I remember correctly, and was released because of her state of health.

And then, after her release, she suffered attacks on her right to political asylum.

Her right to political asylum was withdrawn, her residence permit was withdrawn, and she put up resistance.
As a result of this resistance, she was granted a residence permit, but her right to political asylum was not restored.

And today, in fact yesterday, at her appointment with the SPIP, she was told that the prefecture, the sub-prefecture of L’Haÿ les Roses, which is attached to the Créteil prefecture, we are in front of the Créteil prefecture, has asked for her right to asylum to be withdrawn, the withdrawal of her residence permit, and has also requested her extradition to Turkey.

She was placed in a detention centre in Rouen, the Doiselles detention centre. And today, she is still being kept there.

Her trial will take place within 48 hours. She will appear before a judge within 48 hours. She risks being extradited to Turkey. And if she is extradited, she risks torture, she risks death, because she is wanted.

She is on Turkey’s wanted list. They put a bounty on her head.
And so is one of her colleagues, who worked on the same newspaper as her in Turkey in the 1990s, Ayten Öztürk, was extradited by Lebanon to Turkey more than three years ago. Following her extradition, she was tortured for six months in a secret torture centre in Turkey.

She was then imprisoned and sentenced to life imprisonment. After the torture sessions, there were 898 wounds on her body. She had suffered many after-effects.
She was in danger of dying. She pulled through, but now she’s in prison. Despite all her health problems.

And we’re afraid that the same thing will happen to Zehra Kurtay. That’s why we’re announcing that we’re going to stay here, in front of the Créteil prefecture, until this decision is overturned.

We would also like to announce that Zehra Kurtay has started a hunger strike today, to protest against this decision and to prevent her extradition. And there are three of us here too, on hunger strike in solidarity with Zehra Kurtay.

We call on everyone to come here and support us, to support Zehra Kurtay, to share information about her situation, and to support us. We thank you all.