Kurdish politician Mehmet Sincar commemorated on 27th anniversary of his assassination

Photo: MA

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Politician Mehmet Sincar has been commemorated on the 27th anniversary of his death in an armed assault in the southeastern province of Batman.

As an MP from the Democracy Party (DEP), Sincar and the DEP's Batman Chair Metin Özdemir were killed on September 4, 1993, during Sincar's visit to Batman to examine political assassinations in the region.

Thousands of people are believed to be killed in politically motivated assassinations in the country's Kurdish majority eastern and southeastern regions during the conflict in the 1990s. Most of the deaths have remained unsolved, including Sincar's.

He was commemorated today in the cemetery in Kızıltepe, Mardin, by his family members and politicians from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which is considered a successor of the DEP.

Lawmakers Ömer Öcalan and İmam Taşçıer were among the HDP members who attended the commemoration, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) reported.

Delivering a speech at the cemetery, Sincar's spouse, Cihan Sincar, said that "The state should be ashamed that it has not revealed the murderer of its own MP until today. They brought out a Hizbullah member and said that he was the killer, and then released him, too. Whatever they do, it's our duty to reveal these perpetrators."

"If our lives don't last long enough, our children will not give up pursuing this case. Our voice should reach everyone. So far, both our people and our party have paid a price," she said.

"We won't abandon our cause. This is a flag of honor and dignity. We will carry this flag. And we are calling on everyone to do this. We promise at the cemetery, we will continue the struggle of those who struggled for democracy and against attacks.

"Not us but the state will be ashamed. We will try to be worthy of those we have lost. Our word is our bond."

MPs Taşçıer and Öcalan also said that they would continue to struggle for peace and democracy although the enmity towards the Kurds continued.

What happened?

Taşçıer also submitted a parliamentary question to Minister of Justice Abdülhamit Gül today about Sincar's assassination, asking how could be the state not able to solve the murder in 27 years.

In the motion, he also explained the assassination and the judicial process, saying that Sincar had gone to Batman to examine the situation about the "unsolved murders" of DEP party assembly members Habip Kılıç and Hikmet Kılıç.

The murder was first claimed by the Turkish Vengeance Brigades (TİT), a paramilitary organization, he said, adding that the role of the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit (JİTEM) was revealed in the case following the Susurluk Accident on November 3, 1996.

The JİTEM is widely thought to be the main organization behind the political assassinations in the Kurdish-majority regions. While some criminal cases against the organization continue, some of them have ended in acquittal.  

The "Susurluk Accident" was a traffic accident where a lawmaker, a police school director, a mafia leader and a fashion model together died together in a car, which triggered public outrage against "state-mafia relations" at the time.

Later, Cihan Yıldız, a member of Hizbullah, an Islamist armed group in the southeast, and Ejder Arpa were held responsible for the assassination. While Yıldız had been in prison until he was released in March 2019, Arpa was never caught.

A retrial started in October 2019 at Diyarbakır 6th Heavy Penal Court, which rejected a request for the arrest of Yıldız.

About Mehmet Sincar

Kurdish politician, lawmaker from the Democratic Party (DEP).

He was elected an MP in the 1991 parliamentary elections, in which the DEP made an alliance with the Social Democratic People's Party (SHP) to get around the 10 percent election threshold.

He was also a founder of the People's Labor Party (HEP), which was shut down by a court before the foundation of the DEP.

In his report about the Susurluk Accident, then Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry Kutlu Savaş mentioned the plans to assassinate a number of Kurdish politicians, including Sincar.

He graduated from Gazi University Faculty of Technical Education. He was born in Mardin in 1953.

(EMK/VK)