Osman Evcan
Osman Evcan born in 1959 in Samsun, is an anarchist prisoner who spent the last 41 years in prison. İn 1992, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison with the charges of being a member of a radical leftist group. He was also imprisoned for 9 years between 1980-1989. Since Osman adopted anarchist ideas in 2003, he also became vegan and supports animal liberation struggles.
Osman Evcan was imprisoned in many different prisons all over the country during his conviction. He built his life fighting against authoritarian violence and especially the violence and oppression which is a systemic part of the prison’s hierarchical structure, and he still continues his fight against prison’s oppressive mentality, without giving an inch, aspiring to the right standards for anarchist, vegan, libertarian individuals.
Osman’s first barnburner act was his hunger strike in 2011 for vegan food to be available in prison which lasted 42 days. During his hunger strike the anarchists, animal liberationists from all over the World and in Turkey supported Osman’s fight to access vegan food in prison. After 42 days of hunger strike the government gave in and made regulations for the vegan and vegetarian prisoners: “Vegan or vegetarian prisoners demands will be accepted as long as its limited by subsistence allowance.” After this victory of all anarchists, animal liberationists and political prisoners, Osman continued to be in the anarchist struggle during his time in prison. He has supported the LGBT, Animal Liberation, women's rights, anti-imperialist struggles outside prison and he made hunger strikes to protest the animal massacre during each ‘feast of sacrifice’ every year for 3 days. He wrote articles to support nature, ethnic and different identities against the government’s and comprador bourgeoisie’s raids and he still continues his political fight as much as he can from prison.
He self-criticized himself by saying that both capitalist and socialist system forms for being are statist and colonist formations. To quote his own words: “Veganism is not only a capitalism contrast it also includes socialism contrast. Veganism is civilization contrast. Veganism has an all out attitude against technological destruction, violence, human species alienation to nature and to itself, ecological pillage, pollution, colonialism, global warming. Act of civilization has a common history with statist forms of organizations. The idea of a state grown up process starting from primitive-simple history ongoing modernization continuum for thousands of years and transforming to nation state is a result of civilization. We cant separate this ongoing, mutually reinforcing facts that produce each other, from each other. Veganism is a radical attitude against all…”
In Kocaeli no 1 high security prison, the pressure against him continued to increase. After his hunger strike for 33 days on June 2015 he took vegan food supplies one step further and he gained the right to get vegan food from outside the prisons. The prison administration usurped this gain due to arbitrarily reasons. Osman Evcan continued his hunger strike since 10 November 2015 and won the fight in late December 2015.
* Osman Evcan can be with us in the near future.
He can be released in September of this year 2022. The worst scenario is 2028.