Turkish poet to face court on World Poetry Day

Turkish poet Ahmet Telli will face court on 21 March, globally celebrated as the World Poetry Day, over an address he had made in a meeting to commemorate a man who was killed after he joined the resistance against the Islamic State (ISIS) group's 2014 attack on the Kurdish city of Kobani in Northern Syria, Raportare said.

Speaking to Haluk Kalafat of the Platform to Monitor Freedom of Art, Telli said:

"The lawsuit was launched over a poem I read and some remarks I made in a meeting held in commemoration of a young man who went to Kobani to fight ISIS and was killed by a mine explosion. The meeting was in 2017 and the lawsuit was launched in 2020. I was banned from traveling abroad. The first hearing session took place in January. I was required to go abroad for an event. We asked for the lifting of the travel ban and it was approved. I went abroad and returned back. The second hearing session is tomorrow."

Telli is accused of "terror propaganda" over reading two poems from his book titled Dovusen Anlatsin ("Let the One Who Fought Tell") in the 2017 meeting.

A hasty English translation of the poem that the book is named after - for the sake of providing some insight for the reader - goes as follows:

Amber beads of agony in our hands
rolling down our fingers
Hey poet
you've told only parts yet again
many things you've left missing again
The day is about to end
and you don't have our agony on record
Speak no more, let the rest
be told by the one who fought