Ismail Beşikçi: Turkish sociologist, critic of Kemalism, and kurdologist

Abstract

For many years, Ismail Be•ikçi was the only non-Kurdish person in Turkey to speak out loud and clearly in defense of the rights of the Kurds. No other writer in Turkish history has had to face such an endless series of trials and prison sentences for almost every public utterance as Be•ikçi has. The odyssey of Be•ikçi's encounters with Turkey's legal system shows, more eloquently than any abstract political or legal analysis could, what is wrong with the system, and it demonstrates effectively how the officially proclaimed human rights and democratic values become null and void where the Kurdish question is involved.