A total of 90 artists and organizations reacted to the ban on performances by the returning Armenian Ethnographic Ensemble and two other Turkish musical groups, who were due to take to the stage at the Munzur Culture and Nature Festival.

The statement says: “The essence of the Munzur Culture and Nature Festival, which has been repeated for over twenty years, is to resist and fight to protect the nature and culture of the Dersim, on which they are trying to cast a shadow with these bans. This is undoubtedly the result of the prohibitive mentality used in the past. In many areas, artists’ performances, events and concerts are banned for arbitrary reasons. Every individual and group who is not afraid to express the pain and difficulties of the people, and who opposes the prevailing order, faces reproaches against these bans.

The banning of the “Grup İsyan Ateşi”, the “Grup Yorum” and the Armenian group “Veratarts”, as well as the forcible arrest of the members of the Grup Yorum, their expulsion from the borders of Dersim and their refusal to enter Dersim is an attack on revolutionary democratic artists in particular, which is also an attack on opposition to the existing order in all sectors.

All artists in our region are affected in one way or another by these attacks by the authorities. The Arévis, Armenian culture, representatives of the Kurdish people, women and young people are not left out either.