While walking on the enlightenment way, there have always been attempts to hinder its light from reaching the masses throughout history. Those who weave dark webs of power for their own gain, stealing the future of the people, fear the clarity, knowledge, and truth that light brings. And driven by the fear, they continuously impose oppression – going as far as ordering death.
Over the past thirty years, our intellectuals are the people that brave and noble people, sought to bring the light of enlightenment of the society – have been exposed to oppression and persecution by the orders of these cowards. They were murdered, leaving behind grieving spouses, orphaned children, and heartbroken parents.
In the country, where we felt the deep pain of “unsolved” murders as a society – from the most distant circles to the closest ones – it is a responsibility of any conscious intellectual to deliberately resist the normalization of the term “unsolved” murders. In society, justice and democracy can only settle through an expanding number of citizens who resist pressure, coercion, intolerance, torture and justice.
With this awareness, it was decided (together with democratic civil society organizations) that the week was between January 24 and January 31, determining the anniversaries of assassinations of journalists and writer Uğur Mumcu (killed on January 24, 1993) and Prof. Dr. Muammer Aksoy (killed on January 31, 1990), would be decided as the “Week of Justice and Democracy.”
The week, which has been held since 1993, is the common success of democratic mass organizations, local governments and all intellectuals who did not remain silent, who joined together hand in hand for institutionalization of democracy and justice.
The Week of Justice and Democracy, for which um:ag undertakes the preliminary preparations, all correspondence and communication between mass organizations, is carried out in many parts of the country, especially in Ankara, and abroad, with the increasing part of many mass organizations, institutions, and organizations, local governments and volunteers every year.
By the foundation, it tries to aid institutions and organizations that are active in and outside Ankara on the issues they need during Justice and Democracy Week.
Every year, commemoration meetings that begin in front of Uğur Mumcu’s house with the participation of all democratic mass organizations in Ankara, and they are also held in Türkiye, continuing throughout the week with talks, panel discussions, concerts and exhibitions, and thousands of people participate in the events through the week.
um:ag, which continues to grow and provide service with the help of all these responsive people and organizations that share this belief and the idea, will be happy to see you by its side.
