Prominent Turkish academic and journalist Nuray Mert has announced that she will no longer write about Turkish politics or speak publicly on political matters, citing fear of prosecution and imprisonment.
Mert, 65, said in her farewell article on the Medyascope news website on Wednesday that she is afraid of ending up in prison.
“I’m afraid that if I end up in prison, no one will care for my cats. I’m afraid of being separated from the little girl I consider my granddaughter — my niece’s daughter. I’m afraid because my health, age and the toll of a life-threatening illness have left me with little strength,” she wrote.
Mert announced last month that she had been indicted on charges of membership in a terrorist organization over a photo taken with Kurdish militants in Syria in 2014.
The photo featured Mert among a group of female journalists who traveled to the region to conduct interviews with militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as part of peace talks between the Turkish government and the PKK, which ultimately collapsed in 2015. Turkish prosecutors claim the image is evidence of her alleged ties to the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
Mert is set to stand trial in a high criminal court and has been put under a travel ban.
She said in her farewell article that she is afraid for Turkey’s future because it is “moving through a dark tunnel with no idea where it leads.”
“I’m afraid for that little girl’s future. There is no shame in fear — fear is human,” she added.
Her decision comes at a time of intensifying government pressure on the opposition voices in the country, which resulted in the arrest of dozens of opposition figures including İstanbul’s powerful mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, last month, who is seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest political rival.
The subject of multiple investigations, in December 2018 Mert was given a suspended sentence for signing a “peace declaration” in 2016 that urged Turkey to end its military operations in the country’s southeast and resume negotiations with the PKK.
Mert is a professor of political science and international relations at İstanbul University. She has been a political observer and contributor to major newspapers in Turkey throughout her career.
She has been an outspoken critic of sensitive issues in Turkey, including minority rights, Kurdish rights and freedom of religion and the press.