Alevis in Turkey commemorate Sivas massacre

ANKARA, Turkey (Kurdistan24) - Turkish and Kurdish adherents of the Alevi faith minority in Turkey held rallies on Sunday in remembrance of 33 civilians, mostly artists and intellectuals, who were victims of the 1993 hotel arson attack by Islamists in the city of Sivas.

Over ten thousand people in Sivas gathered and walked, holding pictures of the victims who perished in the fire twenty-four years ago as commemorative ceremonies were also held in other cities, according to the Kurdistan24 Ankara Bureau.

The massacre, named after the infamous Madimak Hotel, was committed by a mob of hundreds of Sunni Muslims who claimed offense at the presence of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses' Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin.

The violent act, which killed 35 people in total including two hotel staff, was also a result of a 1988 fatwa (religious decree) by the founder and supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.

The fatwa called for the execution of Rushdie for his book which many Muslims considered "blasphemous" due to its narration of Islamic prophet Muhammad's life.

"Sivas will become a graveyard for secularists," chanted assailants who set fire to the hotel according to Turkish media archives.

The Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and the main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) lawmakers and officials were present at the Sivas walk, calling for justice.

The trial for the suspects who took part in the arson lasted over twenty years, and most of the one hundred defendants were convicted, with prison sentences ranging from two to fifteen years.

The HDP's Spokesperson Osman Baydemir told reporters in Sivas that the Madimak Hotel should be converted into a "Museum of Shame."

Baydemir called on the government to recognize the Alevi faith and act in line with the country's secular constitution.

The head of the Association of Alevi Democrats in Ankara, Murat Isik, told Kurdistan24 that the legal battle over the last two decades went into limbo.

"We will continue demanding justice from the state," Isik said, going on to accuse authorities of complicity.

(Sait Ozmen of Kurdistan24 Ankara contributed to this report.)

Editing by G.H. Renaud