Jail officials censor letters sent to inmate over 'obscene' drawings
Jailed painter Aynur Epli has been sending letters to her cousin incarcerated in an Erzurum prison. The Erzurum jail management has cut out Epli's drawings from the letters on the grounds of their being “obscene.”
Duvar English
A prison in the eastern province of Erzurum has censored letters sent to an inmate for their inclusion of “obscene” drawings, Mezopotamya news agency reported on Dec. 14.
Aynur Epli, a painter who has been behind bars for the last 25 years, has been sending letters to her cousin, who is similarly imprisoned. Epli is incarcerated in the İzmir Aliağa No. 1 Prison, whereas her cancer-suffering cousin Fatma Özbay is jailed in the Erzurum E Type Prison.
The censor on Epli's drawings came to light when the painter wrote of the situation to Görülmüştür, an initiative that collects letters of political prisoners in Turkey.
“I have sent drawings that I made to my cancer patient cousin [Fatma Özbay] in the Erzurum E Type prison. This is the only way that I could provide moral support for her. Unfortunately, the [Erzurum] jail management has found the drawings 'obscene' and has not handed them to her,” Epli said in her letter to Adil Okay, one of the founders of Görülmüştür, adding that the Erzurum jail management had sent back the drawings to her.
“The prevention of our correspondences, which are our most basic human rights, in this way has neither legal nor moral basis,” Epli said, adding that she will “certainly” keep on sending her drawings to her cousin.
Epli said that her drawings focused on female body images with a symbolic emphasis on violence inflicted upon women.