Excerpt from "El Pais" v. 2.7.2009
Erasmus grants are very popular among young people: one learns country and its people, and it is usually next to the study plenty of time to enjoy the cultural life of their city. In many places have become a part of the cityscape Erasmus students. There are Erasmus Pogramme in all European countries - but also in Turkey. They are from the European Commission. ie, funded by European taxpayers' money and should serve etc. of integration, mutual discovery.
In the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep University, there is also an international Erasmus program .
The region belongs to the Kurdish area of settlement and is close to Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Adriana Espinosa is a 24 year old student of the Spanish University of Seville. She wants to be a journalist abroad and received an Erasmus grant for the Southern Turkey. On 15 September 2008 she arrives in Gaziantep. It is working so they told to integrate quickly into the city, sharing a student flat with two Turkish women (Kurdish origin, as it turns out), with whom she is familiar with a professor. Man befriends itself, and on one occasion she accompanied her colleagues to a meeting of the legal Kurdish party DTP. Adriana compared to EL PAIS: "I did not feel that it was an illegal assembly. and the police, who watched us, told us nothing, so I'm gone completely quiet, with material for a work for the university. "
A few days later makes Adriana with other students visit nearby Syria. Returned to her room in Gaziantep, she finds her clothes scattered on the floor, the cabinets open, her laptop is gone. The Turkish police had been in their absence the apartment. Her two apartment mates were immediately taken in for questioning and accused of supporting illegal Kurdish PKK, zuammen 17 other Kurds. Adriana flees in panic in the home of a Spanish fellow student.
A few days later, she learns of a professor that her two Kurdish friends had been released, but it is suggested, these no longer apply. The laptop is returned with the same professor. Since then Adriana and her Spanish fellow student are in panic and feel observed. They are told, her phone would certainly bugged and tapped her PC. But the teachers they calm down, everything will probably be no consequences.
On 19 November 2009, however Adriana gets a call of the Dean of the Faculty sociological, they should go immediately there. On demCampus she received from a man who identifies himself as a police officer; a car with another policeman zoom rolls in it. As she learns later, there on the university campus, a police office and police officers in plain clothes mingle with the students and watching them.
Adriana is brought into the car, take her half an hour - to a police district in the vicinity of the prison of Gaziantep. Adriana is interrogated for 1 hour by a prosecutor. A woman sitting there who does not say a word. Later, she realizes that it was her lawyer. A translator says there is a dossier with photos of her, and she'll probably accused of "terrorist propaganda". Man questioned Adriana detail about her relationship with the two Kurdish girls who are very dangerous. Then it is moved back to the university.
In January 2009, Adriana interrupts their Gaziantep stay to file exams turned in Seville. The day before she wants to return to Turkey, she receives a Epost with a warning, not better go back there, there are "dangers". Adriana investigates and learns that the police had meanwhile been in her school in Gaziantep and had called for their fingerprints and their presence prior to April 1, 2009. On July 1, there will be a trial for "preparing and participating in illegal gatherings" against them. In addition, the prosecutor had accused of "terrorist propaganda" to the Court of Adana, where specifically processes are held against "terrorism".
In its statement of June 2009 Adriana stressed that they have apart from this event had positive experiences in Turkey exclusively. However, they krtisiert, would have consequences of these incidents will drawn regarding the Erasmus Convention because it did not go on to leave students without assistance and information on conflicts.
The trial began on 1.7.2009 in Gaziantep. The Turkish Court is about to send the files to Seville, so Adriana can say there. Adriana compared to EL PAIS: "The lawyer told me that you accuse us of engaging in illegal rallies; in the event that I am found guilty, you will punish me with one year and six months' imprisonment, but since I have no criminal record, I hope I do not have to go. "
The student is ready to move up before the European Court of Human Rights. You just want that this "nightmare stops" because she has not yet completed their studies and want to once again back to Turkey.
The story Adriana should be made available to all Erasmus students who want to go to Turkey, known.
- Advertisement -
Tags: Erasmus study , Gaziantep , Turkey
