Kurdish author Musa Anter commemorated on 30th anniversary of assassination
Photos: MA
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Kurdish author and journalist Musa Anter, also known as Apê Musa, was commemorated today (September 20) on the street where he was shot dead 30 years ago.
His family members, politicians and NGO members attended the event on Street No. 442 in Yenişehir, Diyarbakır.
Those responsible for Anter's killing have still not been identified, with the statute of limitations in the case concerning the murder expiring today.
State actors that perpetrated thousands of extrajudicial killings in the country's mostly Kurdish-populated regions during the conflict in the 1990s are widely believed to be behind the murder of Anter.
CLICK - Musa Anter murder case postponed to after expiry of statute of limitations
Speaking at the event, Dicle Müftüoğlu, head of the Tigris-Euphrates Journalists Association (DFG), said, "The bullet fired at him was fired at the people's language and search for the truth."
Bombing of newspaper offices and killing of newspaper distributors followed the killing of Anter, she added.
"This time, we are addressing those who think they can make us give up with operations and arrests: We are the pen of Apê Musa, we are his little generals, his successors. We will not give up this struggle for the truth," she remarked.
Hüseyin Aykol, a veteran Kurdish journalist, said, "I didn't come here to express my hatred towards those who murdered Apê Musa. I came here to honor my debt to Apê Musa."
"We are not like when you left us. Since that day, we have published nearly 50 newspapers, we had radio stations. We are television channels that broadcasting all over the world. As long as we live, we'll report on what the Kurdish people are experiencing."
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy İmam Taşçıer said Anter was murdered at the age of 70 because he stood against the efforts to "destroy the Kurds."
After speeches, the crowd marched to the spot where Anter was shot, chanting the slogan, "The free press can't be silenced." People left carnations on the place where Anter was murdered.
About Musa AnterAuthor, 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-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. |
(EMK/VK)