What is sacred; A life of dignity!

“What are we living for?

There is no security. There is no work. There is no future. There is no law. There is no constitution. Is such a life sacred, really?

It is not life itself that is sacred...

What is sacred is a just life.

What is sacred; a life of dignity.

What is sacred is a secure life. 

What is sacred is a life of honor!”

The person who said these words is a volunteer lawyer for the 301 miners who were massacred in the Soma disaster,

who took on the role of attorney for victims in every social incident Selçuk Kozağaçlı, after 8 years of

captivity, regained his freedom last night.

Kozağaçlı, President of the Progressive Lawyers Association, had been arrested in November 2017.

In the case where he was tried on charges of "managing an armed organization, membership in an organization, and aiding and abetting"

he was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months. 

He spent exactly 8 years in Silivri Prison.

This legendary speech that Selçuk Kozağaçlı gave on the street, the years he spent in prison

had gone viral on social media during that time and spread from generation to generation. 

Kozaağaçlı described the prison conditions in a letter he wrote from Silivri to Euronews as follows;

“My first five hundred days in prison were spent in a twelve-square-meter isolation cell,

without any contact with anyone other than my visitors and lawyers. For some time now, we have been

allowed to stay in a slightly larger cell with two people. The walls of our exercise yard

are eight meters high and covered with a wire mesh. Although we sometimes call it a

“garden” out of habit, it is actually just a chimney. Or rather, a well that is

monitored continuously by cameras. Our population density, which amounts to two people per twenty-five square meters,

I don't want to mislead you because of that; this place is actually a prison town."

Today, elected mayors and elected party leaders joined the residents of this prison town,

as did the elected mayor of Istanbul's metropolitan municipality.

"More than half of the town's residents have lived here for years as part of this

scenery without ever seeing it. And everyone is equally accustomed

to the uniform and the handcuffs," Kozağaçlı explained in his writing. 

It had been two years since he entered prison. Another 6 years have passed since then.

He did not take a step back from his honorable stance; his social media account, "Prison

He always wrote in his 'Notebook'.

Kozağaçlı was released yesterday evening (Tuesday, April 16, 2025). 'Now

if we are in bad days, everything has its time,' he had said. On the day

Kozağaçlı was released, high school students' 'don't touch my teacher' protests

were continuing. After 8 years of his life spent inside,

young people welcomed Kozağaçlı in front of the iron bars once again.

Lawyer Selçuk Kozaağaçlı, standing tall with an armful of chrysanthemums,

and that proud smile for the cameras, has taken his place in our collective memory as a symbol of the struggle that

“what is sacred is a life of dignity.”

Welcome back Selçuk Kozaağaçlı, welcome back, beautiful human being…