Twenty two years without justice: Sivas massacre

2015-07-02 12:04:20

NEWS CENTER (DİHA) - On 2 July 1993, a group of radical Islamists calling for sharia and death to infidels gathered around the Madımak Hotel in Sivas province where the Pir Sultan Abdal Alevite Festival attendants were accommodated.

The demonstration which started under cover of protesting novelist, Aziz Nesin, who translated and published Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and criticized Islam, turned into a violent attack and eventually the crown set fire on the Madimak Hotel. Nesin was saved by security forces, but 33 other intellectuals and 2 hotel workers, were killed. Security forces were criticized for not stopping the crowd.

Although a couple of perpetrators were arrested and after a 13-year trial were convicted they were soon released under an amnesty law known as the “rehabilitation project”. The Sivas massacre targeted not only Aziz Nesin and The Satanic Verses but also Turkey's Alevi minority who are the second largest religious community in Turkey, although no official statistics are available.

Alevites, unlike Sunnis, represent a more liberal wing of Islam.

Some 85 suspects received prison sentences ranging from two to 15 years in connection with the massacre, while another 37 suspects were acquitted in December 1994 by the now-defunct State Security Court, or DGM, on charges of “attempting to establish a theocratic state by overturning the secular constitutional order.”

The Supreme Court of Appeals reversed that decision by stating the massacre was directed against “the republic, secularism and democracy.” The First Ankara State Security Court then re run the trials and sentenced 33 suspects to death and 14 suspects to prison for up to 15 years in 1997.

One of the chief suspects in the massacre, Cafer Erçakmak, died and was buried in Sivas in July, 2011. Erçakmak, 72, had been hiding for the past 14 years. Some had said he was living in France, but apparently he had been returned to Sivas.

On 13 March 2012, Ankara High Criminal Court dropped the Sivas massacre case due to statute of limitations.

Heavy security measures are taken every year on 2 July as thousands arrive in Sivas to commemorate 33 intellectuals in front of the Madımak Hotel. Commemoration activities in honour of those murdered are organized in many provinces around the country as well.

(nt)