DObservers said ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections in Turkey that the signs for Erdoğan’s deselection are good. The scientists, journalists, writers, musicians and politicians living in exile, who gathered in front of the television in an apartment in Berlin-Charlottenburg on the evening of May 28th to watch the vote count, were also hopeful that after 21 years of Erdoğan the longed-for change will occur. Everyone had brought something for the buffet – maybe the evening would end with a party?
They left Turkey because the regime had persecuted them legally or put them under other pressure. Now it was a matter of everything: either you would be able to buy a plane ticket home – or you would have to be prepared to live in exile for more years. Can Dündar was also among the guests. “We were like defendants waiting for their verdict in court,” is how he describes the mood of that night, which fluctuates between confidence and fear, with a vivid description of which his book begins.
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