KURDISH JOURNALIST KILLED IN DİYARBAKIR

29 years without Apê Musa

Kurdish journalist and writer Musa Anter was assassinated in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Diyarbakır 29 years ago today, on September 20. He has been commemorated on the street where he was killed.

İstanbul

* Photo: Tigris-Euphrates Journalists Association

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Assassinated 29 years ago today (September 20), Kurdish journalist and writer Musa Anter (Apê Musa*) has been commemorated on the 442nd Street of Diyarbakır's Yenişehir, where he was killed.

The family of the deceased journalist, journalists, politicians and his loved ones attended the ceremony held in memory of Musa Anter, who was massacred by the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism (JİTEM) Organization on September 20, 1992.

Among the ones who attended the commemoration were Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Co-Chair Saliha Aydeniz, Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) provincial co-chairs and executives, Tigris-Euphrates Journalists Association (DFG) Co-Chairs as well as representatives of NGOs.

The commemoration was held in a police blockade and the people carried the pictures of killed journalists. The police did not allow the group to carry the banner with the picture of Ferhat Tepe, a journalist who was disappeared in custody after being detained on July 28, 1993.

Following the speeches at the ceremony, the group laid carnations by the side of Musa Anter's photos.

Speaking at the commemoration, DFG Co-Chair Dicle Müftüoğlu said that the mentality that massacred Anter wanted to silence the Kurdish press as well.

Noting that they will keep on struggling to ensure that murderers of Apê Musa are put on trial, Müftüoğlu said that despite all the pressures, they have not let Musa Anter's pen go, briefly adding:

"The ones who fired bullets at Ferhat Tepe wanted to destroy a tradition.

"The ones who fired bullets at Apê Musa wanted that pen to be let go. But today, we see that the free press, the Kurdish press has not been silenced and it will not be silenced."

DFG Co-Chair Serdar Altan also stated, "29 years have passed. Our friends are still massacred. The truth cannot be disappeared. We have just learned here today that carrying the photo of Ferhat Tepe is forbidden. You cannot make him forgotten with these bans. We are walking on his path. We are once again commemorating Apê Musa."

About Musa Anter

Author, journalist and activist. Assassinated in the southeastern Diyarbakır city in 1992.

On September 20, 1992, Musa Anter attended the Culture-Art Festival in Diyarbakır, signed his books. An armed attack was launched against Anter and his nephew, journalist and writer Orhan Miroğlu in Cumhuriyet Neighborhood. Anter died, Miroğlu was wounded. The attack was allegedly conducted by Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Organization (JİTEM), a controversial wing and intelligence agency of the gendarmerie.

It was during the 1937-38 Dersim Revolt that he was taken into custody for the first time. He was among the founders of Revolutionary Eastern Culture Hearths, the Labor Party of People, Mezopotamya Cultural Center and İstanbul Kurdish Institute.

After leaving the Faculty of Law in the third year, Musa Anter started writing for Şark Postası and Dicle Kaynağı. He was imprisoned in 1959 because of his Kurdish poem "Qimil/Kımıl" published on İleri Yurt newspaper. Anter was also faced with life imprisonment in the lawsuit known as 49s. He was arrested in 1963, sent to exile in 1967 and imprisoned after the military coups in 1971 and 1980.

Throughout his life, Anter wrote for İleri Yurt, Dicle-Fırat, Barış Dünyası, Deng, Yön, Azadiye Welat, Yeni Ülke, Özgür Gündem, Rewşen and Tewlo. He also published seven books and one Kurdish-Turkish Dictionary.

Born in Mardin in 1920, Musa Anter completed his secondary and high school education in Adana and studied law at İstanbul University.

(HA/SD)

* "Uncle Musa" in Kurdish