| CEMÝLOGLU TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF
I was born in Kirim on 13 November of 1943. We were sent to exile to Middle
Asia with all our people with accusation of traitor in May in 1944. Our families were sent
to exile in a village in Andican region of Uzbekistan. I lived my childhood there.
We migrated from there in 1955 and went to a town near Tashkent. I
completed secondary school in Russian Language in 1956 and wanted to enter Arabic Language
and Literature Faculty of Tashkent University. But they definitely said to me there “We
do not admit members of nations which are not loyal to Soviets, that is, Kirim Tatars. I
was recruited in a factory.
We had established a political organization named “Kirim Tatar Youth
National Organization” with some young friends in 1961 in Tashkent. They arrested the
leader of our organization in a few weeks. They did not arrest me but fired from my job.
In 1962, I was registered with Tashkent Irrigation and Agriculture Mechanization
Institute, but they dismissed me from there upon the request of KGB after three years. The
reason, that is, accusations against me were as follows: He criticizes the national policy
of Nationalist Communist Party and Soviet government, he distributed among institute
students his article he wrote in a nationalist spirit titled “Turkish Civilization in
Kirim in 12-18th Centuries”, he is degenerating the ideas of the students.
Upon firing me from the institute, they wanted to recruit me as a soldier
in Soviet Army. I refused going to perform my military service. Now that we do not have
any right of citizenship in this state, then we are not indebted. Second, why should a
person who was sent into exile from his land by violance protect this state? I said I will
set my hand and sign the military oath that I will remain loyal to this state. They put me
in prison for one and a half years for this.
They arrested me a second time in 1969. My guilt was to write letters and
articles about the status and rights of Kirim Tatars which dishonor national policy of
Soviets. I had written protests against occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet army in
1968, etc. They said I propagandized against the Soviets.
They arrested the Jew poet Ilya Gabay, who helped Kirim Turks a lot and who
lived in Moscow those days and Ukrainian general Petro Grigorenko and brought to Tashkent
to put to trial. But they separated the case of Grigorenko from ours and put him into
asylum. So, he stayed in the asylum for more than five years because he helped Kirim
Turks. They sent me and Ilya Gabay to heavy working camps for a period of 3 years in
accordance with the verdict by Tashkent Court. Ilya Gabay committed suicide a few months
after he was released. He threw himself out of 12th floor of a building and died.
They arrested me for the third time in 1974 and sent to the heavy working
camp in Siberia for a period of one year. They brought another action against me three
days before my being released and extended the period. Supposedly I propagandized against
Soviets among the prisoners in the camp and dishonored the policy of Soviets in my letters
I wrote to my relatives, similar accusations. I protested with a hunger strike. It lasted
for 10 months, more accurately, for 303 days.
Here you may ask is it possible that a person survives such a long hunger
strike. The conditions of hunger strike was as follows in Soviet prisons: You do not eat
anything, but when you draw near to death, court guardians put handcuffs on you and open
your mouth by force, insert a rubber pipe, and pour some nutritive fluid material not to
let you die because of hunger, or they inject glucose in your veins with a syringe.
In that period, that is during my hunger strike lasting for 303 days, since
Andrey Saharov, Petro Grigorenko and other popular people demanded my release by writing
applications and protest notes to the public opinion of the world and United Nations
Organization, many people in the world heard my name and problems of Kirim Turks.
I found out years later that in Turkey demonstrations, publications and
other movements were made in Turkey and that Kirim Turks in Turkey had active
participation in those. However, without taking into consideration my hunger strike or the
protest notes from various places of the world, they tried me in Omsk city and sentenced
to two and a half years in a working camp. The trial was a secluded one. They let neither
my relatives and friends nor the academician Andrey Sharov and his wife Yelena Bonner, who
intentionally came, in the court. “Free public” consisted solely of guardians, KGB and
the servants of ministry of the interior. They sent me to a heavy working camp named
Primorski near the Chinese border.
They took me to Tashkent after my period came to an end and set me
“free” under delicate supervision and inspection. The conditions of supervision were
as follows: It is forbidden to leave Tashkent city, it is forbidden to go out between 8
o’clock p.m. and 6 o’clock in the morning, it is forbidden to go to crowded places
(such as coffeehouses, teahouses, bazaar and similar places) and I was obliged to go to
the police station for record every week.
They put me into prison one year later in February 1979 on grounds that I
was disobeying the conditions of delicate supervision. Academician A. Sharov came to my
trial in Tashkent again, but they did not let him and nobody in again. My fifth trial was
also a secluded one and they decided to send me to exile to Yakutia for 4 years.
We went to Kirim to settle down with my family after the exile period, but
they sent us into exile from Kirim three days later and took to Uzbekistan.
They arrested me again in November 1983 again. They sentenced me to 3 years
in heavy working camp and took me to a camp 45 kilometers far away from Magadan city. The
accusations were same traditional ones as the previous cases. In other words, I defamed
national policy of Soviets, that is their domestic and foreign policy. I signed a protest
note against occupation of Afghanistan together with Sharov and a few friends etc. Another
accusation apart from that was I attempted to take the dead body of my father who died in
Krasnador country in summer of 1983 to Kirim and bury there without taking into
consideration that it is forbidden, and I acted as a guide in conflicts against the
policemen and soldiers trying to prevent.
They brought a new trial against me near the end of my period in Magadan
camp. But that year Soviet Union had begun to change. They had started to release
political members being pressured by liberal world. They put me to trial in city court of
Magadan in December of 1986, but only a sentence of conditional three years passed. I am
free since then, that is for more than 5 years.
I elapsed about 15 years in prisons, punishment camps and Yakutistan exile.
In the same year, the alliance meeting of Kirim Tatar national movement initiative groups
were held in Uzbekistan in May. In this meeting, Kirim Tatar National Movement
Organization was founded and its by-laws and program was accepted. They elected me as the
chairman of the organization.
We held Kirim Tatar national general assembly in June 1991in Akmescit city.
This was our first national general assembly after the general assembly held in 1917 in
Kirim. A national committee consisting of merely 33 people representing our people and
authorized to decide on behalf of our people were elected in the general assembly. They
elected me the chairman of the committee.
I am living together with my family in Bahçesaray city. I have three
children.
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