2001 UC Berkeley Journalism Alum Birusk Tugan Dies

By 2001 Alums James Guardino & Gavin Tachibana

Tall, brooding and rail thin, standing on the top steps of the North Gate courtyard there was a good chance you’d see him – wrapped in thought and a billow of smoke.

His full name was Ferhad BirÌÈsk Tugan, but he went by Birusk, which in his native language means Lightning. He graduated from the J-School in 2001, and we recently learned the sad news that he died on June 3, 2016.

“When I think about my friend Birusk, two words come to mind; dapper gentleman. With his tall physique and scholarly visage, he was the epitome of calm and focused tranquility. As fellow international students, we had many chances to discuss and debate, share and learn,” said Tshewang Dendup, J-school class of 2001.

Birusk was born a Kurd in Turkey, a country where the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life. Ever the lover of languages, he secretly learned to read and write in Kurdish when he was 17.

“It is illegal for schools to teach the language,” Birusk noted in a J-School student profile, “and we spoke it illegally in our home. There is only an oral history whispered into people ears.”

He came from the town of Hakkari in the southeastern region of Turkey, where armed conflict between state security forces and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) has taken the lives of over 36,000 people since 1984. The PKK is fighting against the Turkish state for cultural and political rights for the Kurds.

With a scholarship from Turkey’s largest daily newspaper, Tugan left Hakkari for Istanbul University in 1985. After receiving his degree, Tugan held a series of newspaper jobs until, in December 1993, he and 130 of his coworkers were arrested by Turkish anti-terrorist teams who surrounded the offices of Ozgur Gundem, a pro-Kurdish newspaper.

Most of the newspaper’s employees were released immediately, but Tugan was detained for 14 days. “I saw the real face of the Turkish state,” he said. “I was tortured. They told me that if I went back to work for the paper, I would be killed. I knew they meant business as they had done it before.” In the months leading up to the arrest, more than 10 Ozgur Gundem journalists were mysteriously killed, he said.

Within ten months after his release, Tugan fled his country for New York, where he worked odd jobs and learned English. One month after he arrived, an explosion destroyed the offices of Ozgur Gundem, killing one person and injuring at least 22. “I saw the pictures of my office in the paper,” Tugan said. “If I had stayed I certainly would be dead.”

It is under these circumstances that Birusk, at age 31, enrolled in the J-School, where he sought to improve his written English in order to tell the Kurds’ story to an American audience.

“Birusk cared deeply about his people. He was a source of strength and inspiration. From him, I learned more about myself, more about journalism and more about being human,” said Dendup.

After J-School, Birusk landed at the Tampa Tribune, which is where he was during 9/11. It was on that day, he said, he made the decision to become an American citizen. On Aug. 15 the following year, he joined 800 immigrants from around the world at the Tampa Convention Center and took the oath of allegiance to his chosen nation, calling himself a proud Kurdish-American.

“I hope Sept. 11 does not provide those whose eyes cannot get used to the racial-ethnic rainbow we call America with ammunition to destroy it,” Birusk told the Tribune, which chronicled the anti-Muslim harassment he faced post 9/11 and his journey to citizenship.

After earning a master’s degree in international relations from Columbia University, Birusk co-produced a documentary called “Quest for Honor, about a group of Kurdish women working to end honor killings in Kurdistan (of Iraq), that was shortlisted for an Oscar.

In 2009, he was recruited to Paris to help launch a Kurdish language satellite TV station called KurdTV1. He spent seven years there doing news and translating Hollywood films like Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven into Kurdish, “the language of my people who have been deprived of such ‘luxuries’ for too long,” he wrote in a recent email to former director of school affairs Rob Gunnison.

Then, the management ran out of money and Kurd1 TV stopped. “I am now looking for a permanent job, as I have two children to think about, while trying to find my way home, to the States,” he wrote.

Birusk most recently volunteered for Doctors Without Borders in northern France, in a refugee camp with a largely Iraqi Kurdish population. The camp is on the coast of the English Channel “Ò North Sea. Police believe Birusk fell into the water at night, may have succumbed to hypothermia and drowned. He was found on June 6, 2016 by a search team, said Jani Diylan, a friend and co-worker.

A tragic accident, ending the life of a man with an enormous heart, lightning in his spirit and much left undone.

He is survived by his wife Berivan, a daughter Torin Evin, age 4, and an infant son named Sidar Cembeli.