AYVALIK DEMOCRACY PLATFORM

‘We don’t forget October 10, we don’t forgive’

The members of Ayvalık Democracy Platform commemorated the ones who lost their lives in the October 10 Ankara Massacre: “We won’t forget the ones we lost, we won’t let them be forgotten. We won’t forget or forgive the ones responsible for it.”

Gönül İlhan

‘We don’t forget October 10, we don’t forgive’

* Photos: Gönül İlhan

Click to read the article in Turkish

The members of the Ayvalık Democracy Platform met at the Cumhuriyet Square in Balıkesir's Ayvalık yesterday (October 10) and commemorated the ones who were killed in the Ankara Massacre on October 10, 2015. "We don't forget October 10, we don't forgive," they said.

Ersin Ayar, the Education and Science Laborers Union (Eğitim-Sen) representative to Ayvalık, read out their statement. He briefly said:

"Thousands of people coming from all over the country to attend the Labor, Peace and Democracy rally gathered in front of the Ankara Main Train Station in the morning of October 10, 2015. At 10.04 am, two successive bomb explosions bloodied up the meeting site.

"As a result of the attack launched by two suicide bombers of ISIS, our 104 friends lost their lives. Nearly 500 friends were injured and disabled.

"The October 10 Ankara Massacre, which concurred with a dark period of the year 2015, was a political murder. The October 10 Massacre would not have happened if the Diyarbakır Massacre on June 5, 2015 and the Suruç Massacre on July 20, 2015 had been investigated in the real sense of the term and their perpetrators had been found.

"In the 6th year of the Massacre, we are once again calling out from Ayvalık: We won't forget the ones we lost and we won't let them be forgotten. We won't forget or forgive the ones who were responsible for it!"

'They wanted peace for 83 million people'

Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) Hatay MP and TİP Vice Chair Barış Atay attended the commemoration as well. He briefly said:

"The names of the murderers were all over the place, but they are not the only perpetrators. The perpetrators are also the ones who said, 'Give 400 MPs and let this be solved in peace.'

"The murderers are also the ones who were among the actors who turned the Middle East into a bloodbath by talking about a 'strategic depth' and defined themselves as dissident leaders. The murderers are the ones who still prefer attacking us while we are holding the commemoration.

Our friends... How many people are there? A hundred? What is the population of this place? A hundred thousand? Does it become a million in summer? Regardless of how many people there are in this country, be that a hundred thousand, a million or 83 million, they wanted peace for all of them. They wanted peace for the ones who sit in a tea garden and look from afar and for those who walk on the street today and say, 'What are these people talking about?'

"This is our debt to the people of our country: It might look far-fetched a few years before, but we will, sooner or later, bring all the perpetrators to account in the near future. Don't have any doubt about this."

The Ankara Massacre

A suicide attack was launched against the Peace Rally in Ulus, Altındağ in the capital city of Ankara at around 10.04 a.m. on October 10, 2015.

While 69 people lost their lives at the scene of the incident, a total of 103 people and two attackers lost their lives.

After the bombs exploded, police officers used tear gas on the wounded and those who were trying to help them. As a result of this intervention, the wounded could not be referred to hospitals quickly and the survivors were also traumatized.

The scene of the incident was not placed under protection and crime scene investigation teams and prosecutors did not come to the scene immediately. The teams arrived after about one and a half hours and deputy public prosecutor after two and a half hours.

The indictment concerning the attack was approved on July 13, 2016. Accordingly, the order for the attack was given by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS) representative to Turkey, İlhami Balı.

It was stated in the indictment that it was the same people who organized the Suruç bombing, which had killed 33 people. Fourteen suspects including Balı face from 5,083 to 7,820 years in prison on the charges of "attempted murder multiple times" and "attempting to annihilate constitutional order". The trial started on November 7, 2016.

On August 3, 2018, the Ankara 4th Heavy Penal Court handed an aggravated life sentence for "violating the constitutional order" and 100 aggravated life sentences for "wilful murder" to nine defendants. They were also sentenced to 10,557 years in prison each for "attempted murder" (Abdulmubtalip Demir, Talha Güneş, Metin Akaltın, Yakup Şahin, Hakan Şahin, İbrahim Halil Alçay, Resul Demir, Hüseyin Tunç and Hacı Ali Durmaz). The trial of the fugitive defendants is continuing as their cases were separated.

The families of the deceased hold a commemoration ceremony on the 10th day of every month in front of the Train Station.

The peace rally participants who lost their lives in the massacre are: Abdülkadir Uyan, Metin Kürklü, Gökhan Akman, Orhan Işıktaş, Gülhan Karlı Elmascan, Yılmaz Elmascan, Nevzat Sayan, Bilgen Parlak, Hacı Kıvrak, Rıdvan Akgül, Rıdvan Akgül, Hacı Mehmet Şah Esin, Gökmen Dalmaç, Elif Kanlıoğlu, Hakan Dursun Akalın, Ercan Adsız, Ayşe Deniz, Berna Koç, Fatma Esen, Gülbahar Aydeniz, Eren Akın, Canberk Bakış, Tayfun Benol, Nizamettin Bağcı, Kasım Otur, Başak Sidar Çevik, Nilgün Çevik, Resul Yanar, Mehmet Ali Kılıç, Tekin Arslan, Sezen Vurmaz, Dilaver Karharman, Onur Tan, Umut Tan, Sarıgül Tüylü, Dilan Sarıkaya, Ali Kitapçı, İsmail Kızılçay, Muhammet Demir, Korkmaz Tedik, Veysel Atılgan, İbrahim Atılgan, Emine Ercan, Kübra Meltem Mollaoğlu, Meryem Bulut, Seyhan Yaylagül, Ebru Mavi, Ali Deniz Uzatmaz, Ziya Saygın, Vahdettin Özgan, Cemal Avşar, Ahmet Katurlu, Selim Örs, Azize Onat, Dicle Deli, Güney Doğan, Binali Korkmaz, Mehmet Zakir Karabulut, Leyla Çiçek, Metin Peşman, Mesut Mak, Adil Gür, Gökhan Gökbönü, Şebnem Yurtman, Osman Turan Bozacı, İdil Güneyi, Abdullah Erol, Mehmet Hayta, Özver Gökhan Arpaçay, Şirin Kılıçalp, Uygar Coşgun, Ahmed Alkhadi, Nurullah Erdoğan, Gözde Arslan, Aycan Kaya, Yunus Delice, Sevgi Öztekin, Mehmet Tevfik Dalgıç, Sevim Şinik, Emin Aydemir, Fatma Karabulut, Ramazan Tunç, Erol Ekici, Feyyat Deniz, Necla Duran, Osman Ervasa, Ramazan Çalışkan, Vedat Erkan, Abdülbari Şenci, Niyazi Büyüksütçü, Gazi Güray, Sabri Elmas, Erhan Avcı, Ümit Seylan, Serdar Ben, Nevzat Özbilgi, Hasan Baykara, Fatma Batur, Bedriye Batur, Ata Önder Atabay, Mustafa Budak, Ağa Bayar.

(Gİ/TP/SD)

Gönül İlhan

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