İbrahim Sinemillioğlu
Former President of the Istanbul Bar Association, lawyer representing the CHP in the Maraş Massacre Trial held in Adana in 1979
Maviş Toklu
Eyewitness of the Maraş Massacre
Fidan Yıldırım
Eyewitness of the Maraş Massacre
Prof. Mahmut Toğrul
Former HDP Gaziantep Member of Parliament, chemistry professor at Dicle University
Prof. Beyza Üstün
Advocate for labor, science, nature and freedom in Turkey, HDP’s Istanbul MP in the 25th term, environmental professor.
In the years 2014-2015, the world was shaken by videos of ISIS publicly murdering people in Syria while chanting religious slogans. In an era where humanity was preparing to explore the universe, these medieval scenes left people worldwide in fear and anxiety. However, the people of Maraş experienced this horror much earlier, in 1978. They lost hundreds of lives. This massacre in Maraş carried out by an organization resembling ISIS, was state-supported. The powers that had seized the state used it to commit genocide against the Kurdish Alevi population.
Between December 19-24, 1978, in the city of Maraş, Turkey, hundreds of people were brutally killed: stabbed, boiled in water-filled cauldrons, and violently murdered, much like what was witnessed in Syria in 2015.
The world neither saw nor heard of this pain. Humanity did not punish this crime or deliver justice. In places where crimes go unpunished, they grow; criminals become emboldened and increasingly reckless. Therefore, the perpetrators of the Maraş Massacre are still among us; this unpunished crime has led to the empowerment and entrenchment of similar organizations.
The Kurdish Center for Human Rights is holding a press conference to recount these events to the press and the global public once more, to highlight this tragedy and demand that the perpetrators face justice.
