http://radicaldemocrat.blog.com/2013/07/02/sivasmassacre/
20 years ago today, 37 people in Sivas/Turkey had been burned alive. They were mere intellectuals who gathered in in Madimak hotel for a conference. Among them were bards, poets, novelists, artists, scientists, philosophers… Islamist extremists had protested their presence in the city of Sivas, for there were people who had cited Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” and spread atheist ideals, among the crowd. While hundreds of intellectuals had decided to gather in the name of “Anatolian Peace and Welcoming” there, thousands surrounded them with absolute hatred. When police and gendarmerie forces did not intervene, over ten thousand extremists who had already come to the hotel area with flammable chemicals and other supplies for arson, set the hotel on fire when many were inside with very low chances of escape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V4PjzREGrE
Tens of people died, many others saved, a nation was left traumatized, perpetrators never punished. Over two decades, civil society called for recognition of this crime by the state, an official apology from those who were responsible of the police/gendarmerie/firefighter inaction, guarantee that punishment shall be given to those who organized, carried out and hid this crime. None of those happened. A massive literature piled up on the event from all artistic and academic fields.
Today, across the country Gezi protesters continue their struggle and include the massacre of Sivas’93. Last year when the court decided not to investigate on the massacre any longer, PM Erdogan commented saying “this is all the best for the country” regarding the perpetrators being free without any punishment. The lawyers, who defended the case against the victims, do not seem to resent the fact that they defended a massacre. Many others who were involved in this crime got promoted to high positions over the years, many of the lawyers getting elected into parliament from Islamist parties, including 8 current AKP deputies.
As Erdogan keeps referring to his apology as head of government for 1938 Dersim massacre, he still resists against apologizing for the Sivas massacre or Uludere air raid that left 35 people dead two years ago. The expectations are optimistic that someday there will be recognition of all the crimes committed against civilians while state officials organized/ordered/protected the perpetrators, yet chances seem low for justice to prevail. While this has been settled as the demand of many millions, to see justice, many others, unofficially mobilized by AKP youth, who continue glorifying massacres and continue to threaten in the name of religion.
On the day when people were being burned alive, someone in the hotel Madimak asked “What happens if they hurt some of us?” and was answered by -poet who died as a result of Sivas Massacre- Metin Altiok “Survivors will write poems of the fallen---”
Rifat Ilgaz wrote:
“Pharaohs broke the clay tablets in Egypt. Hitler’s armies burned down libraries in Europe. Look here intellectuals! For the first time in history they filled intellectuals in a building, set them on fire!”
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/03/world/40-killed-in-a-turkish-hotel-set-afire-by-muslim-militants.html