SIVAS 1993: THE MADIMAK MASSACRE
Those who were killed on 2 July 1993 in Sivas’ Madimak Hotel will be commemorated on the 26th anniversary of the massacre.
MADIMAK
On 2 July 1993, a group of radical Islamists calling for sharia and death to infidels gathered around the Madimak Hotel where the Pir Sultan Abdal Alevite Festival attendants were accommodated.
Within the scope of Pir Sultan Abdal Festivals, many artists and intellectuals including Aziz Nesin came to the city as the special guest of Ahmet Karabilgin, the governor of Sivas of the time.
After the evening prayer had finished, the crowd of radical Islamists pouring from the mosques in the vicinity, united and started to march towards the hotel with the slogans “Sivas will be the grave for Aziz” and ”Governor resign”.
The demonstration which started under the name of killing novelist, Aziz Nesin, who translated and published Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ and criticized Islam, turned into a violent attack and eventually, the Madimak Hotel was set on fire, whilst the jihadists outside demanded the heads of the intellectuals.
The group first set fire to the vehicles in front of Madımak Hotel and stoned the hotel. Madımak Hotel was burned by its curtains and the furniture found downstairs which was ignited. 35 people, including Asım Bezirci, Nesimi Çimen, Muhlis Akarsu, Metin Altıok and Hasret Gültekin, who had taken refuge in the hotel, died by burning or drowning in smoke.
51 people, including Aziz Nesin, survived the events with their own means and grievous injuries. Aziz Nesin, who was tried to be saved by the fire ladder, was beaten by the officer on the ladder and was pushed from the ladder towards the opposing crowd of radical Islamists gathered around the fire truck.
Aziz Nesin was injured at the beginning of the lynching attempt, at which point the fascist police intervened.
The Sivas massacre targeted not only Aziz Nesin and The Satanic Verses but also Turkey’s Alevi minority who are the second-largest religious community in Turkey, although no official statistics are available.
Although a couple of perpetrators were arrested and after a 13-year trial was convicted they were soon released under an amnesty law known as the “rehabilitation project”
THE RESPONSE OF THE GOVERNMENT
After Turgut Özal’s death, Tansu Çiller would be elected as the President of DYP instead of Süleyman Demirel. The words of Çiller for the Madımak massacre would be controversial: “Thank God, our people outside the hotel have not suffered any harm.”
President Süleyman Demirel stressed that the event was isolated and that it had not been transformed into an Alevi-Sunni conflict: “The event is individual. There is a heavy provocation. As a result of this provocation, the people came to the agony… The security forces did their best… There is no conflict between the mutual groups. There is a loss of life from the fire in the hotel. ”
Interior Minister Mehmet Gazioğlu pointed to Aziz Nesin as a target: “With the known incitements of Aziz Nesin against the beliefs of the people, the people were provoked and reacted.”
IT WAS AN ACCIDENT
The Sivas Municipal Assembly Cafer Ercakmak of the Islamists Refah Party is famous for shouting “may you get blessed,” to the group to terrorists.
Karamolaoğlu, before the June 24 elections, participated in the program Artı TV on a question about Sivas, would say the following: ”It did not qualify as a massacre. This is a sad incident. This is indeed described as very painful. But; a massacre is said to be done intentionally to kill people, this is the definition of a massacre. But there had been an accident [in Madimak]; The curtains in the hotel were burned, cars were burned. The people inside are dead, which I still don’t understand because they didn’t open the windows.”
THE MADIMAK CASES
A day after the incident, 35 people were detained. Then the number of detainees increased to 190. 124 out of 190 detainees were charged with attempting to change the secular constitutional order and establish a religious state, and the rest were released.
The first hearing of the case, known as the Sivas Case in public, was held on 21 October 1993 at the Ankara State Security Court. As a result of the lawsuit which was decided on 26 December 1994, acquittal for a further 37 defendants was given.
After a 13-year trial was convicted the terrorists were soon released under an amnesty law known as the “rehabilitation project.”
The eight defendants who fleed after the decree of the Supreme Court of Cassation and Cafer Erçakmak, a member of the Sivas Municipal Assembly of the period, which was described as the key name of the incident, have not yet been arrested.
On 13 March 2012, the remainder of the case concerning the fugitive defendants was dropped from the statute of limitations.
DEFENDERS OF MADIMAK MASSACRE ARE NOW HIGH RANKING AKP MEMBERS
In the following years, these lawyers joined the AKP and Felicity Party and there were those who rose to the top management positions. The Minister of Justice, Sevket Kazan, who was among the defendants’ attorneys, visited the terrorists in prison during his ministry.
