3rd INTERNATIONAL ART CONTEST

Advocates of Silenced Turkey is organizing the 3rd international art contest about ongoing human rights violations in Turkey on behalf of 9-year-old Nurefşan Teke who died in the Maritsa river on March 4th, 2021 while fleeing from the persecution in Turkey.

Subject:
Human Rights Violations in Turkey.

AWARDS

1st Prize $1,000

2nd Prize $500

3rd Prize $250

Certificate for the best 10 artists.

Submit by October 1st, 2020

Application Form

Please send your artwork to [email protected]

*All varieties of art will be acceptable submissions.

**Dimensions: At least 17 x 11-inch landscape

***You retain your rights to your artwork; however, by entering the contest, you grant the Advocates of Silenced Turkey and its affiliates a royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive license to publicly display, distribute, reproduce and create derivative works of the entries, in whole or in part, in any media now existing or later developed, for any purpose.

About Nurefsan Teke:

A 9-year-old Turkish girl named Nurefşan Teke died after a boat carrying a group of asylum seekers capsized in the Maritsa River on March 4, 2021.

Nurefşan and her mother Neslihan Teke reportedly wanted to reunite with the father who reportedly fled to an African country from Turkey last year in order to avoid an ongoing government crackdown on alleged members of the Gülen movement.

Because they were denied passports by the Turkish authorities, the mother-daughter decided to flee Erdogan’s Turkey. The boat that carried them, however, capsized in the river early on March 4, causing the death of Nurefsan.

Her body was reportedly found close to the scene of the accident sometime afternoon.

Following the incident, The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu broadcasted an interview with the mother Neslihan Teke on social media. During the interview, the deputy also talked about previous incidents, in which tens of women, men, and children who died trying to flee to Greece over the Maritsa River in the aftermath of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

Thousands of innocent people have fled Turkey due to a massive witch-hunt launched by the authoritarian Erdogan regime against sympathizers of the Gülen movement after July 15, 2016.

More than 500,000 people have been investigated, and nearly 97,000 including academics, judges, doctors, teachers, lawyers, students, policemen, and others have been put in pretrial detention since the so-called coup attempt. Meanwhile, 150,000 people have lost their jobs in the government’s post-coup purge of state institutions.

Many oppressed tried to flee Turkey as the government had canceled thousands of passports.

www.silencedturkey.org – [email protected] – [email protected]