A Park Too Much for Activist Ayse Nur Zarakolu

The municipality of Diyarbakir, the Kurdish-majority province in the south-east of Turkey, has met with hurdles in its plans to name a park after deceased human rights activist and publisher Ayse Nur Zarakolu.

The Regional Administrative Court has decreed that the park cannot be named after a person who "supported separatist ideas and spread terrorist propaganda both in her own books and in the books she published".

The court had become involved after the Diyarbakir governor's office had objected to the naming. The Diyarbakir municipality council will assemble in order to decide on their reaction.

Ayse Nur Zarakolu built bridges 

The husband of Ayse Nur Zarakolu, Ragip Zarakolu,  a journalist at the "Ülkede Özgür Gündem" and a publisher, has said: "Ayse Nur Zarakolu, like Hrant Dink, was a person who tried to build bridges between our peoples on the basis of mutual respect , and she is one of the people who paid for this with her life."

Article in question has been dropped 

In an article yesterday (22 August), Zarakolu wrote that his wife was sentenced to imprisonment under Article 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, but that this article has now been dropped in the process of "pretend democratisation".

Thus, argues Zarakolu, the sentence has lost its validity, as have the decreeing courts, the State Security Courts, which have been abolished. "Whether or not Ayse Nur Zarakolu's name is on the gate of the park or not, she will always live on and symbolise the brotherhood between peoples."

Municipality has taken her name off

A park on the Dicle Kent Boulevard had been named the "Aysenur Zarakolu Free Women's Park Forest". Following the court decree, the municipality has renamed the park "Park Forest". (EÖ/AG)