Last week, Cihan Erdal was reunited with his husband in Montreal’s international airport after two years of detention in Turkey. While on a family visit in Turkey in September 202o, the Turkish-born Carleton University PhD candidate was arrested on charges of inciting violent protests six years ago.
While in detention, Turkish authorities refused to recognize Erdal’s husband, Ömer Ongun, as his spouse, and forbade them from messaging each other. The two men resorted to writing long letters every two weeks to each other to connect. Erdal would describe his life in prison and his latest readings, while Ongun would update his husband on life in Ottawa. Now a free man, the academic is ready to resume his research into European youth social movements.
“I’m grateful for all the support and solidarity in my case: this has been a roller-coaster of emotions,” Erdal said in an interview Monday with Saltwire. “It feels unreal that I have made it home.”
In his youth, Erdal was a youth member of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish political party the government accused of inciting protests that left 37 dead in 2014. The academic was accused of inciting terror and violence based on three social media posts he made in support of the protests, and faced a sentence of life imprisonment if found guilty.
Erdal spent 262 days in jail, with the first 26 days of detention in solitary confinement. Last summer, his lawyers presented evidence showing he had nothing to do with the protests because he was not in the same city as the HDP executive committee during their protest strategy meeting. The Turkish court released him on bail. However, Erdal was forced to stay under house arrest for over a year, and was constantly monitored by law enforcement. Fearing he would never leave Turkey again, he walked hours to an undisclosed third country to seek political asylum, where he alerted Canadian officials to arrange his trip back home. Global Affairs Canada maintains that it was not involved with his departure from Turkey and will not provide further details, citing privacy concerns.
Back in Ottawa, Ongun led a tireless campaign to rally international support to bring his husband back home. The European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), issued statements calling for his release. More than 2,500 academics worldwide signed a petition demanding his release.
“I’m thrilled and relieved Cihan’s back in his Ottawa home,” said CUPE National Secretary-Treasurer Candace Rennick in a statement. “What he went through is a reminder that around the world, trade unionists and other activists face violence and arrest for their political activities. Let’s keep putting our energy and activism into building a world where people like Cihan can speak up and organize without fear.”
Erdal’s case is one out of many arbitrary detentions in Turkey. According to the U.S. Department of State, Turkish authorities detained thousands of individuals with alleged ties to political movements with questionable evidence and without due process. Human Rights Watch also reported hundreds of arrests during the Istanbul Pride March last June. Same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships are not recognized in Turkey, though homosexuality is not criminalized.
Erdal himself is relieved to be back home with his husband and hopes to resume his normal life. “I promised Ömer when I was behind bars that I will never, ever complain about the long winter in Ottawa; I will be one of the few people who will never complain,” he told Saltwire.
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