students with their fellow-students, which as established by the testimony of thousands of witnesses and signs and the fact that six provinces did not interfere with us, is solely for the good of the country, nation, and religion, on account of happiness in this world and the next, and to strive against the currents from inside and outside the country which are bent on corruption, and like the prosecution to accuse them of “exploiting religion and inciting the people to disturb public order and breach security,” although in twenty years not one single such incident has been recorded in connection with the Risale-i Nur students, will bring not mankind, but the earth to anger, thus rejecting such an accusation. However... there is no need to say anything further. My written objections and its addendum, which were written long before the indictment, are my reply to it.
Prisoner S a i d N u r s i ,
Afyon Prison
* * *
I say this to Afyon Court and the Chief Criminal Judge:
Because since my early youth I could not endure to be dominated, I severed my relations with the world. Now life has become a great burden for me with this meaningless, unnecessary oppression. I do not have the power to endure the persecution of thousands of officials outside. I am fed up with this sort of life. With all my strength I am requesting of you that you sentence me. To enter the grave is not within my power, and I have to remain in prison. You too know that the unsubstantiated crimes the prosecution accuses me of are non-existent. I cannot be convicted because of them. However, I have serious faults before my true duties, for which I can in effect be convicted. If it is appropriate to ask, I shall reply to your question. Yes, my only crime out of my serious faults is this: it occurred to me here in Afyon Prison that in the view of reality it was an unforgiveable fault that, because I had not looked to the world, I had not performed the weighty duty with which I had been charged in the name of the country, nation, and religion, and my not knowing this did not excuse me.
The fact that three courts have acquitted us in this respect shows just how far from truth and justice those have fallen who give the name of a worldly, political society to the Risale-i Nur students’ disinterested