Hasan Basri Aydın

Hasan Basri Aydın (* 1935 ) is a Turkish retired literature teacher, author and human rights activist.

Life

According to an article in the Turkish daily Hürriyet , Aydın fought all his life with petitions up to the highest level against injustices of all kinds. The article further states that his guilt is that he believes he lives in a democratic country and that rights are not limited to them on paper, which is why he had been transferred 27 times as a teacher, lost his citizenship and was thrown in prison seven times. According to a report by Amnesty Internationals , Aydın wrote a letter in 2000 criticizing the director of prisons and detention centers for describing type F prisons as being hotel-like . In his letter, Aydın ironically asked the director to spend 10 days in type F prisons with his wife. As a result of this letter, Aydın was sentenced to five months in prison. Nevertheless, in 2001 he is said to have campaigned for two seriously ill prisoners, whom he did not know personally, named Murat Dil and Sevgi Ince, who had been refused any medical treatment. This letter of complaint to the then Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Türk brought him another indictment. Another trial for insulting major government officials followed a letter to the President. He is said to have been charged with this wording: The state forces should take their heads out of the sand and see the realities. If this is a constitutional state, such a practice must not exist! If we are not a constitutional state, we should know that and act accordingly . A letter to the government cabinet recalling the spread of torture in Turkey led to further charges.

Aydın was sentenced to one year and one year and two months imprisonment in two court cases in 2011, despite his serious health problems due to hemiplegia, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. He is currently serving his sentence in Metris Prison.

The journalist Mehmet Y. Yilmaz called on President Abdullah Gül to pardon Aydın and recalled that the President had pardoned his former party leader Necmettin Erbakan , who had been convicted of fraud and forgery of documents, because of his old age and health.

Books

• Ateist Tanrıyla Söyleşiler. Ceylan Yayınları, Istanbul 2009, ISBN 978-975-6304-83-9 . ( Conversation with the Ateistic God. Ceylan Publishing House) (Turkish)
• Tanrıyla polemicist. Ceylan Yayınları, Istanbul, 2007, ISBN 978-975-6304-63-1 . ( Polemics with God. Ceylan Publishing House) (Turkish)
• Tanrıya Mektuplar. 2 volumes, Ceylan Yayınları, Istanbul, 2004. ( Letters to God. Ceylan Publishing House) (Turkish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} : Internet portal of the Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet : Örnek vatandaş seçilmeliydi hapiste olüyor! , accessed January 25, 2011 (Turkish)
2. ↑ : Amnesty International -Turkey: Memorandum to the Turkish Prime Minister on the occasion of the visit of a delegation headed by Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 138 kB), February 2004, p. 9.