Journalist and former political prisoner Omer Cakir. Photo supplied.

The case of Omer Cakir brings renewed attention to the fate of political prisoners forced into exile. A Kurdish writer and former child prisoner, Cakir was arrested at the age of 15 for protesting Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish civilians. He spent 13 years in Turkish prisons on two separate occasions, where torture, sexual abuse, and deaths in custody were widespread. His imprisonment was not an exception, but part of a broader system that criminalizes Kurdish identity and political dissent through Turkey’s anti-terror laws.

Although Cakir ultimately escaped that violence, its consequences continue to shape his life. After a dangerous journey through Mexico and the United States, he arrived in Canada seeking safety, only to face homelessness, poverty, and an unresolved refugee claim. For more than three years, his application has been stalled by a security investigation alleging links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

As Turkey deepens its repression of journalists, writers, and activists, Cakir’s story shows how political imprisonment follows people beyond prison walls—and how exile can become another form of confinement.

A Kurdish childhood behind bars

Cakir’s ordeal began in the 2000s, long before his first arrest. As a child, he witnessed everyday racism against Kurds; at school, in the streets, and through the silence enforced at home in Adana. In an email interview with Canadian Dimension, Cakir said he learned early on that his Kurdish identity was regarded and treated as inferior by the Turkish state and its supporters. He saw his family and community pushed to the margins of society. These moments shaped Cakir’s understanding of injustice and power, opening his eyes and planting the first seeds of resistance.

The Turkish assaults on Iraqi Kurdistan in 2007 pushed Cakir and his high school friends into the streets to protest. What followed was far harsher than anything they had imagined. The demonstrations led to arrests, prison sentences, torture, and years of harassment.

“It was a cold December night,” Cakir recalled. “Three friends and I were walking in our neighbourhood when the police suddenly surrounded us. We were taken into custody without any explanation.

“At the police station, I was tortured for hours. Then I was transferred to Kürkçüler E-Type Prison in the city of Adana, where I spent two nights being systematically tortured while completely naked. I had never been detained before. I had never seen a prison. I had no idea how anyone could survive there.”

Inside the prison, “The guards wouldn’t let us sleep, talk, or eat. We weren’t allowed to raise our heads or look around. Even breathing had to be silent,” he said. “Everything was built on fear.”

Cakir added that guards threatened the children in custody. “They told us they would kill us because we were Kurdish, and make us regret being born.” “I was transferred to Adana Pozantı Children’s Prison for over three years,” Cakir said. “There, I witnessed dozens of children being raped, harassed, and subjected to severe torture.” He, too, was abused repeatedly. “At one point, my entire body was cut and bruised, and guards rubbed salt into the wounds. The torture lasted for days.”

The sustained physical and psychological violence pushed him to the brink. “There were many times I thought about ending my life,” he said, “because the torture never stopped.”

Kurds in Turkey, an estimated 20 million people, make up nearly one-fifth of the population. Their identity has long been denied and marginalized. For more than a century, Kurds have faced systemic repression rooted in the origins of the modern Turkish state. Beginning in the early 20th century, first under the Young Turks and later with the founding of the republic in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkish nationalism sought to create a single nation defined by one language, one identity, and one culture. Atatürk’s vision of a centralized, unified Turkish state reinforced this policy, emphasizing the assimilation of all ethnic groups into a singular Turkish identity. Kurdish identity was treated as a threat. The public use of the Kurdish language and culture was banned, and assimilation was enforced through law and violence.

Kemal’s policies against the Kurds were continued by President İsmet İnönü, enforcing Turkification and suppressing resistance. This “denial era,” lasting into the early 1990s, was marked by a refusal to recognize Kurdish existence. Under Turgut Özal in the 1990s, some restrictions on Kurdish language and culture were eased, marking a brief “recognition era,” though Kurds still faced racialized stereotypes. In the 2000s, Erdoğan’s AKP allowed greater cultural rights while pursuing regional influence through soft power and economic integration. By 2015–2016, nationalist pressures and tensions with Syrian Kurds and the PKK led to a renewed hardline approach, highlighting the ongoing struggle between Kurdish demands for recognition and Turkey’s insistence on a singular national identity.

Since the 1920s, many Kurds in Turkey have sought self-determination, initially calling for an independent Kurdish state. The PKK was founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Öcalan and others as a response to decades of systematic repression, including bans on the Kurdish language and culture and the denial of Kurdish identity by the Turkish state. Its early goal was full independence, but over time, the focus shifted toward greater political autonomy and recognition of Kurdish cultural and political rights within Turkey. The PKK began armed resistance in 1984 against what it viewed as Turkish oppression and marginalization, resulting in a long-standing conflict with the Turkish government. Turkey, along with several Western countries, including the US and European Union members, classified the PKK as a terrorist organization due to its armed struggle against the state. In 1999, Öcalan was captured in Kenya by Turkish agents, reportedly with assistance from Israeli and US intelligence, and has been imprisoned in Turkey ever since.

Over time, these demands evolved, with the Kurdish movement gradually shifting toward greater political autonomy, cultural rights, and local self-governance within Turkey as a response to decades of repression and denial.

Over more than a century of persecution, Kurds have been alternately erased, racialized, and criminalized, often through sweeping anti-terror laws used to silence dissent.

Protests, cultural expression, journalism, and even music became grounds for arrest.

By the time Cakir was growing up, Kurdish political activity, such as protests and student organizing, especially among youth, was met with mass detentions, torture, and long prison sentences. His story unfolds as part of this long history of denial, punishment, and resistance that continues to shape Kurdish lives today.

Cakir was liberated in 2010, a freedom he had scarcely dared to imagine. Yet his brief taste of joy was embittered by new ordeals: constant harassment, police raids on his home, and relentless death threats.

Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerillas in 2014. Photo courtesy Kurdishstruggle/Flickr.

Imprisoned twice: When song became a crime

Even after his release, Cakir lived under constant surveillance. The threats never stopped, and before long, he was arrested again; this time sentenced to 10 years in prison—a brutally long term, but one that is tragically familiar for many Kurds in Turkey, as countless others have endured similar or longer sentences.

“During my second imprisonment,” Cakir related, “I was transferred to seven different prisons. I was constantly exiled, always sent far from the city where my family lived, to isolate me. Due to financial difficulties, my family could rarely visit.

“Kurdish children were harassed before my eyes, and some committed suicide as a result. Some of my friends became seriously ill and died in prison. Others were left on their deathbeds and still denied release.”

As he refused to show remorse in prison, his sentence was extended to the maximum. “In prison,” he recounted, “my friends and I went out into the yard, sang Kurdish songs, and danced the halay. For that, we were each given an additional two years. Since I would not apologize, my release was delayed even further.”

Yet even behind bars, Cakir found ways to resist. “During my 10 years in jail, I educated myself, reading books, studying articles, and writing,” he said. “What began as short essays gradually evolved into something more elaborate when I started telling my own story. During the same period, I gave several interviews to newspapers, speaking about the abuse and violence inflicted on children in Pozantı Juvenile Prison. In total, I wrote three books while in prison, though one of them was confiscated and banned.”

The books documented the abuse and trauma he experienced there as well as his survival and resilience. His defiance and dedication to knowledge became acts of survival and resistance against the system that sought to erase him.

He explained that in 2020, even though he had completed his sentence, he was not released. The reason: his “lack of remorse.”

“When asked if I regretted anything, I said ‘no.’ My participation in hunger strikes was also cited, and my release was arbitrarily delayed for over a year. I never bowed to humiliating demands.”

One month after Cakir had finally been freed in July 2021, the police raided his home. “My family was forced to the ground at gunpoint. They threatened to kill me in front of them,” he recalled, noting that the aim was clear: intimidation. However, he remained defiant. “I openly told the police and journalists covering the story, ‘I’m not afraid of you.’”

Then came the final, unmistakable warning: “I realized they were going to kill me. I had no choice but to escape Turkey.”

From escape to uncertainty

In August 2021, Cakir fled Turkey, travelling through Mexico and the US before finally reaching Canada, hoping to build a safer life. Even on the day he escaped, Turkish authorities continued to target his family, calling them repeatedly with threats and warnings.

“My family recorded some of these calls and sent them to me,” Cakir said. Police visited their home multiple times, intimidating them and demanding that he return to Turkey, extending persecution far beyond prison walls and national borders.

Cakir himself was arrested at the US border. “I was held for border violations and spent two months in an American prison,” he recalled. “I did not face physical torture, but living under those conditions was a form of psychological torture.”

After a harsh and exhausting journey, Cakir stayed in the US for eight months but soon realized his case there was unlikely to be accepted. Crossing into Canada offered hope, but the struggles continued.

“I had to sleep on the streets for two months because I had nowhere to go,” he said. “I didn’t know the language, didn’t know anyone, and didn’t have the strength to ask for help. I was completely alone and penniless.”

Eventually, the Kurdish community in Toronto and a few Christian communities helped Cakir find a place and submitted his immigration file. But more than three years later, his request for asylum has still not been accepted due to a security investigation over alleged links to the PKK. Canada has listed the PKK as a terrorist organization since 2002 and does not accept its members as immigrants or refugees. But Cakir was a child when he spent 13 years in prison. How and when could he have connected to the PKK?

Cakir has survived torture, long imprisonment, and repeated threats to his life. But today, the danger he faces is quieter and just as real: poverty, insecurity, and isolation. Cakir has now moved from Toronto to Saint John, New Brunswick, due to financial hardship. Despite the challenges he faces, including his uncertain refugee status and constant fear for his family in Turkey, Cakir continues to write. His own story attests to the high cost of dissent, the silencing of Kurdish identity, and the invisible burdens refugees carry even after reaching ‘freedom.’

For the Kurds, there may be a ray of hope on the horizon. In 2025, a significant shift occurred in the decades‑long conflict between Turkey and the PKK. Following a call from imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan for the group to lay down arms, the PKK declared a ceasefire and began disarmament, marking a major step toward ending more than 40 years of conflict. Turkey’s parliament formed a peace process commission to guide legal and political reforms and oversee disarmament, while both sides continue discussions aimed at a lasting political settlement. Kurdish groups have called for progress on constitutional recognition of Kurdish identity and for Öcalan’s release to support the transition, stressing that, while promising, the process remains fragile.

While the 2025 peace process is an encouraging step, Turkey’s commitment remains uncertain. In fact, Turkey does not refer to the agreement as a peace process, branding it “Turkey Without Terrorism.” The government continues to label the PKK as a terrorist organization, maintains military operations against Kurdish groups in Syria, and enforces strict control over its Kurdish population, raising questions about how fully Ankara will support lasting political reforms and recognition of Kurdish rights.

Consequently, Cakir cannot return to his home country as he is certain he would face indefinite imprisonment and torture, or be disappeared forever (Turkey continues to rank among the world’s top jailers of journalists). Dozens of Kurdish media outlets have been shut down, and reporting on Kurdish issues is often criminalized under anti-terror laws. Journalists face long pre-trial detentions, and freedom of expression remains severely restricted. In 2025, arrests and jailings of journalists and activists increased noticeably.

Despite everything he has endured, Cakir holds onto three modest dreams: that his refugee claim will finally be accepted; that he will be allowed to travel to a third country to reunite with his family; and that the books he wrote about his years in prison will be published in English.

“I want my books to be read,” he said. “People need to know what happens in Turkey, and to understand what I lived through.”

Canada presents itself as a defender of human rights and freedom of expression. That commitment is tested not only at borders, but in what happens after refugees arrive. For survivors like Cakir, protection must mean more than escape; it must include dignity, stability, and the chance to live freely without fear. His story poses a simple but urgent question: if safety and freedom are values Canada claims to uphold, who bears responsibility when those who fought for them are left in limbo?

Diary Marif is a Vancouver-based Kurdish writer and freelance journalist born in Iraq. He holds a master’s degree in history from Pune University in India (2013). His journalism has appeared in national and international outlets, with a focus on newcomers, minorities, and marginalized communities. Since 2018, Marif has centred his creative work on memoir and personal narrative, exploring his experiences as a child of war. He also advocates for oppressed peoples, including Palestinians, Kurds, and Druze. He received an Honourable Mention for the 2022 Susan Crean Award for Nonfiction, is a 2025 recipient of the Yosef Wosk Vancouver Manuscript Intensive Fellowship, and was awarded PEN Canada’s 2025 Marie-Ange Garrigue Prize.

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