On December 3, 2020, the United Nations (UN) International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a group of volunteers in Germany are preparing to establish a platform within the human rights organization HRD.
Of the 1 billion disabled people in the world, 200 million are in need of care.
For this reason, they are considered the “largest minority” in the world.
According to unofficial figures, there are 9 million disabled people in Turkey.
A group of disabled people who had to leave the country after the persecution in Turkey formed a platform within the association “Human Rights Defenders (HRD)”, which works in the field of human rights, ahead of the December 3 “World Day of Persons with Disabilities” recognized by the United Nations (UN).
On December 3, Havva Çiftçiler and Oktay Özdemir, the spokespersons of the platform, who are preparing to announce their founding declaration, talked to Samanyolu News about their goals.
Platfotm spokesperson Air Farmers Platform spokesperson Okay Özdemir
Havva Çiftçiler is a geography teacher and mother of three children. She worked as a teacher in educational institutions affiliated with the Hizmet Movement in Turkey. She worked in many provinces such as Istanbul, Mersin and Ordu, and also worked in Ukraine for 6 years. At the age of 27, she gradually lost her eyesight due to a disease she contracted, and was greatly affected by the persecution process in Turkey. He speaks Russian and English and is currently learning German in Germany, where he lives with his family. He also works in social responsibility activities for those who have health problems and disabilities like him.
Like Çiftçiler, Okay Özdemir, the other spokesperson of the platform, gradually lost his eyesight at the age of 37 due to an illness. Özdemir, who lives in Germany, started working in Turkish schools in Yakutia in 1993. After graduating from university, Özdemir started working in foreign trade. Özdemir worked as a manager in many companies in Turkey and then started his own business. Özdemir, who lost his eyesight to a great extent over the years, is now learning German at a school for the visually impaired in Germany where he lives. HOW DID THE IDEA FOR THE PLATFORM COME ABOUT?
O.Ö: I had to come to Germany in 2016. After I came here, I saw that there were many victims who had recently come from Turkey. Together we tried to do something for them. I have worked in various non-governmental organizations since 93. Thousands of people were victimized during the state of emergency and the persecution process in Turkey. The late Gökhan Açıkkollu and Deniz Hakan Şen, who died in prison, were my schoolmates. The treatment they faced affected me a lot. We did something to see if we could do something for them. It made us very sensitive to the victimization in Turkey. We did some activities like a painting exhibition. Life is even more difficult for them. While we were thinking about what we could do for them, we thought of establishing such a platform. First we came together on social media and then HRD executives contacted us. With their support, we decided to establish such a platform.
H.Ç: It is very difficult for a visually impaired person to get used to a new environment. I can learn German because I can read a little bit. I thank God for that. There are also people who are completely blind. There are also people with other disabilities. It is very important to empathize with them. For this reason, it is necessary to create awareness for people with disabilities. We see that this issue is not fully understood even within the community we are in. From time to time we experience a lack of empathy. We met Mr. Oktay in Germany because of my eye disease and we think that such a platform is very much needed. It is important for us to make even one person’s life easier, like the story of the man who tried to throw thousands of sea stars washed up on the beach into the sea one by one.
WHAT KIND OF DIFFICULTIES DO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES EXPERIENCE?
O.Ö: People with disabilities in Turkey face countless problems. Simply put, we face many problems in traffic, public transportation, walking on the sidewalk. Many signs and signs are not made for the visually and hearing impaired. There are difficulties in accessing health services. The hearing impaired cannot even explain their problems to a doctor. In Turkey, people with disabilities are now seen only as customers. They only think about how to sell medical supplies.
H.Ç: Disability rights are a new concept in the world. The UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006. Although Turkey was one of the first states to sign this convention, disabled people are deprived of many rights. Their right to education is taken away from them and they are prevented from participating in the labor force. Except for some developed countries, similar problems are experienced all over the world.
HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC AFFECTED PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES?
H.Ç: In the pandemic, disabled people are experiencing many times more difficulties in many areas than the difficulties experienced by normal people. Those who are already disabled cannot go out. Those who help them in this process cannot help them either. Some disabled people are in the risk group. We want empathy on this issue as well.
O.Ö: Being disabled during the pandemic is a problem in itself. In these days when normal people have difficulties in accessing health services, we are experiencing even greater difficulties. Considering that we are a family with two children, it is sometimes impossible for us to get an appointment with a doctor and then go to the doctor alone.
WHAT DID PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES EXPERIENCE IN ‘TENKİL’?
O.Ö: People with disabilities already face thousands of difficulties in their lives. What happened during the SoE has increased these victimizations even more. More than 2 thousand disabled people lost their jobs after the SoE. Some of them went to prison. Prison conditions are torture in itself. Disabled people without any trial were also deprived of their retirement rights. Although disabled public employees who have completed 15 years of service are entitled to retirement by law, the retirement requests of disabled laborers who have completed this period have been rejected. They were told that they could retire if they completed 25 years like normal public employees, ignoring the fact that they were working as disabled. Some of the children of some emergency decree holders with disabilities were also deprived of social security.
H.Ç: People with disabilities and their families have faced serious human rights violations, including mass dismissals, arbitrary detention, arrest, imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment, as well as denial of access to employment, education, pensions, social security and health insurance. For those who were not imprisoned, the threat of imprisonment for themselves or their relatives was a serious source of stress. For example, my illness progressed further during the State of Emergency. Many people like me experienced the same problems. They could not even go to the hospital. For those who were able to travel abroad, the situation is not much different. It is even more difficult for a disabled person to adapt to another place.
O.Ö: Living in prisons is very difficult for normal people. Especially for a disabled person, this turns into torture. Some disabled people are kept in solitary confinement in prisons. I know two people who suffer from the same disease as me. One entered with 50 percent disability and was released with 70 percent disability, the other entered with 70 percent disability and was released with 90 percent disability.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO AS A PLATFORM?
H.Ç: Even in the institutions where we worked for years, employment opportunities for disabled people were not recognized. We need to change this. Turkey is our homeland, of course we take the disabled in Turkey into consideration. However, I believe that we will bring a different perspective for the disabled in the countries where we live. We also have a goal to reach the disabled in the third world countries.
O.Ö: As a platform, we want to deal with all the problems of disabled people around the world. However, as you can appreciate, we want to focus more on the disabled people who were victimized in the SoE process in Turkey and had to go abroad. We want to stand by the disabled people who are in legal struggle both individually and collectively. We want to organize disabled people around our platform and make them a part of the solution and struggle. We will carry out various activities to help facilitate the adaptation of disabled victims who have had to leave Turkey to the society they live in.
H.Ç: We will try to be the voice of people with disabilities who have suffered injustices and have left Turkey and traveled abroad. It is important for people with disabilities to come together. We can organize a tourist trip, an umrah, a Hajj suitable for disabled people. Even for Service Volunteers, the disabled are deprived of many basic works. For example, it is very important to print a Risal-i Nur work, a book of Endless Nur for the visually impaired. Making some movies suitable for the hearing impaired may seem like a detail, but it is actually very important. We would be very happy if we can pioneer some of these.
O.Ö: We started as 7 people. Apart from me and Ms. Havva, the other 5 friends were victims of the Decree of Emergency Decree and were dismissed from their jobs. We are all in Germany now. When we announced the platform on social media, people from many countries in Europe reached us and asked if we could do something. We want our number to increase even more.
H.Ç: People with disabilities can reach us for all kinds of problems. We work to take care of their problems. We also know that we are not alone, we need people who can work with us. We say let’s be together.