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Hurriyet, Turkey
Nov 25 2011
Controversy over Dersim killings apology widening
Friday, November 25, 2011
ANKARA
Turkey's main opposition has challenged the government to open
discussion on atrocities committed against the country's Alevis while
the deputy prime minister has claimed that special tribunals were
responsible for many massacres in the early republican period.
The comments come amid a stormy debate between the opposition
Republican People's Party (CHP) and the government over the military's
operation against Alevis in Dersim in the 1930s. Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip ErdoÄ?an apologized for the massacres on Nov. 23, but the act
only enflamed the debate.
Questioning the sincerity of the government's apology, Sabahat Akkiraz
pointed to the killing of 111 people, mostly Alevis, by state-backed
right-wing militants in the southern province of KahramanmaraÅ? in 1978
and the death of 35 intellectuals in the 1993 Sivas Massacre at the
hands of an Islamist mob during an Alevi cultural festival.
Alevis remain the subject of discrimination at a state level, Akkiraz
said, adding that their religious holidays were routinely ignored.
`How many Alevis have been promoted as undersecretaries, governors or
directors? You have pushed these people out of the government,'
Akkiraz said, likening ErdoÄ?an to a `modern-day Yavuz Sultan Selim' in
reference to the Ottoman sultan who led large-scale massacres of Alevi
tribes in the 16th century.
`Municipalities spend millions to host Ramadan events. When the
Muharram fast [of the Alevis] starts, we will see what the
municipalities will do,' she said.
Government officials, however, continued to blast practices during the
early years of the Republic when the CHP ruled Turkey under a
single-party regime and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was president.
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said atrocities were also committed
by controversial Independence Courts in CHP-controlled Turkey which,
until 1927, tried those who allegedly collaborated with foreign powers
during the Liberation War and those who later rose up against
Atatürk's drive to Westernize Turkey.
`We know what happened at the Independence Courts. We know that
people, even children, were brutally executed without even being
questioned,' Arınç said in Bursa, adding that the eventual release of
the courts' archives would show `how many other Dersim tragedies
actually happened.'
Friday, November 25, 2011
Nov 25 2011
Controversy over Dersim killings apology widening
Friday, November 25, 2011
ANKARA
Turkey's main opposition has challenged the government to open
discussion on atrocities committed against the country's Alevis while
the deputy prime minister has claimed that special tribunals were
responsible for many massacres in the early republican period.
The comments come amid a stormy debate between the opposition
Republican People's Party (CHP) and the government over the military's
operation against Alevis in Dersim in the 1930s. Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip ErdoÄ?an apologized for the massacres on Nov. 23, but the act
only enflamed the debate.
Questioning the sincerity of the government's apology, Sabahat Akkiraz
pointed to the killing of 111 people, mostly Alevis, by state-backed
right-wing militants in the southern province of KahramanmaraÅ? in 1978
and the death of 35 intellectuals in the 1993 Sivas Massacre at the
hands of an Islamist mob during an Alevi cultural festival.
Alevis remain the subject of discrimination at a state level, Akkiraz
said, adding that their religious holidays were routinely ignored.
`How many Alevis have been promoted as undersecretaries, governors or
directors? You have pushed these people out of the government,'
Akkiraz said, likening ErdoÄ?an to a `modern-day Yavuz Sultan Selim' in
reference to the Ottoman sultan who led large-scale massacres of Alevi
tribes in the 16th century.
`Municipalities spend millions to host Ramadan events. When the
Muharram fast [of the Alevis] starts, we will see what the
municipalities will do,' she said.
Government officials, however, continued to blast practices during the
early years of the Republic when the CHP ruled Turkey under a
single-party regime and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was president.
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said atrocities were also committed
by controversial Independence Courts in CHP-controlled Turkey which,
until 1927, tried those who allegedly collaborated with foreign powers
during the Liberation War and those who later rose up against
Atatürk's drive to Westernize Turkey.
`We know what happened at the Independence Courts. We know that
people, even children, were brutally executed without even being
questioned,' Arınç said in Bursa, adding that the eventual release of
the courts' archives would show `how many other Dersim tragedies
actually happened.'
Friday, November 25, 2011