Dear fundraiser community,

A dear friend of ours, Murat Bay, is a journalist who has worked as a volunteer in the Gezi Protests in Istanbul to take photos and write articles. He continued his work with several other events in Turkey, such as the mine accident in Soma. Recently, Murat worked in Kobane/Syria, where fights between the local Kurdish people and the members of radical jihadist groups take place as you might have heard from the news. Furthermore, he spent a lot of time in Suruc/Turkey, a place where refugees find shelter from the fights around Kobane.

Murat is doing a great job in the area of conflict. All he has there is his camera. Though the situation is very tense, Murat ambitiously portrays the events in the refugee camp and around the city. As he is a Kurdish person in a country where Kurds are a oppressed minority, he wants to show the world the crimes committed against his people in Syria.

But now there is a big problem: Murat is a Turkish citizen and therefore the Turkish government called him for military service. If Murat has to join the Turkish military, he will no longer be able to continue his work as a journalist. Military service in Turkey is definitely not something anybody would want to experience. Murat fought all his career to show people facts and reality which seems to be more important work than fighting for the an army.

But there is one possibility for Murat to be exempted from his military service: In Turkey if you are able to pay a fee of 18.000 Lira (which is approximately 8.000 dollar), you get exempted.

Please, help us collect the money Murat needs to avoid military service, so that he can keep reporting about the ongoing events and remain a free person.

Cheers and thanks,

Murat's friends =)

http://www.sendika.org/2014/10/photos-of-resist... - Photo gallery by Murat

http://www.sendika.org/2014/11/call-from-the-su... - One Article by Murat

http://www.sendika.org/2014/12/new-refugees-new...