English Translation of the Press Speech of Aziz Nesin

*Last Part of The Story

We are struggling, my breath is cut, I'm sweating, it's hot, in the walls... we're all in darkness, in the darkness, we don't see
each other, we don't see anything. We can't find the door. I'm writhing, something terrific, toxic gas, the gases of the fire.

Lütfü said, "We're dying."

I said we're dying. We're going to die, so we have no other choice.

And if we were to stay one more minute, we'd both die, we'd die. And we would die by the most disastrous form of death;
So, choking someone or killing them in the water can't be that bad. At the end I said:

Let's die fast.

*The Speech

I've never imagined it would ever be like this. There is a STATE, I was saying. And there is a STATE, a STATE to be believed in
(ASLEEP). It's good, bad, doing wrong, doing right (I’M SPEAKING CLEARLY) but there's STATE (ASLEEP). Of course, I thought
that, they would prevent this, they wouldn’t compromise this, I was wrong.

I'm an excuse there. A little simple excuse. If it weren't for me, it would happen again. If I hadn't done that conversation, it
would happen again. To not understand this, you have to be retarded. Or you have to be a STATE man.

There are people shouting. This MASS is SHOUTING for EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS, asking for Islamism, ASKING FOR THE
ISLAMIC RULE, at the top of their voice. And the STATE tolerates, while saying that Aziz Nesin is guilty. (Girls) This is, I'm
telling you, it's lowness. (small little young pretty girls), (saying we are burning) Write this down, let them condemn me, at
least so. (The mass is going against them with sticks saying burn you whores) I'il relax too.

*The Story

We're stranded for eight and a half hours. We're in a hotel. There are young, middle-aged people of I do and don’t know.
We're grappling with death. We have nothing to do.

I was on the second floor. I've been walking around and I've been trying to boost everyone. So, I was trying to do it with
believing so. I mean ... I also believed that unfortunately, I did not think it could be so. I was also trusting in this; there are
intellectuals here, all these intellectuals, 50, 60 or 70 intellectuals. The state cannot sacrifice this. There is a brigade out
there and the army cannot sacrifice it. No one would let this happen, no one.

The fire started. They took out the fire with the gasoline they took out of the cars they chopped up. They've already broken
all the cars. After the fire, people began to run down. Where are they running? Nobody knows where they are running. The
fire comes from below. They're heading for the fire. Some of them went to the roof. There are women, girls and children. I
give them a way out, and they're trying to put me forward instead. I let them go. Lastly, two girls were gone too, I was just
going to go after them but there was a distance from me to them. Such a smoke came between us, that it didn’t let me go, I
couldn’t. Lütfü took me there by the hand and put me in a room.

I thought of this, soon or later the fire would be extinguished. We'll stay in this room until it's extinguished. As the window
is facing inwards, it has not been broken, there is a door, we’re stuck there.

We struggling, my breath is cut, I’m writhing.

We’re dying, he said.

*So, if I have provoked, if a man has provoked,

should you burn those men?