Turkish actor Alabora’s mother speaks out after PM Erdoğan’s words

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

A file photo shows Betül Arım and her son Mehmet Ali Alabora. Hürriyet Photo

Famous Turkish actor Memet Ali Alabora’s mother, Betül Arım, also an actress, issued an open letter on June 18 reacting to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s accusation of her son over the Gezi Park protests saying that her son’s life was put in danger.

“A friend of mine called me and said the prime minister had accused my son, I could not believe what I heard, I said she probably got it wrong. How can a country’s prime minister accuse a person, a young man, an artist without even knowing him or investigating the issue. He is a mother’s son as well, he should have thought of his mother first, this is a sin,” Arım wrote.

Prime Minister Erdoğan accused Alabora on June 15 of stirring the unrest in the country.

“They set a different snare this time for Turkey, a so-called artist sent a tweet in the beginning of the Gezi incidents, you know who he is don’t you? He says ‘it’s not just a park issue, don’t you get it?’ We will ask for account of this words if laws still exist in this country. This is a confession. This is the summary of what happened. A Republican People’s Party Deputy said the same thing. What is the issue then, overthrowing the government?” Erdoğan said in a meeting where he addressed hundreds of thousands of AKP supporters in Istanbul.

Arım said her son became a target after Erdoğan’s words and now his life was at risk.

“My heart hurts,” she ended the letter by saying.

Alabora said on June 10 that he was being threatened by unknown people over his support for the Gezi Park protests, after a Turkish daily showed him as one of the leading figures of “a plan to topple the Turkish Government.”

Daily Yeni Şafak claimed on June 10 that a theatre play called “Mi Minor,” allegedly supported by an agency in Britain, had held rehearsals of a “revolution” in Turkey for months.

Alabora, who is also the director of the play, is a well-known activist in Turkey in favor of civil rights and the environment.

The European Parliament’s Greens-EFA group hosted a session on the recent protests in Turkey on June 6 featuring a panel with several protesters from the Taksim Gezi Park demonstrations, including Alabora.