ANKARA - The state should apologize to the families of the people of Dersim on the basis of acknowledging the truth, said co-chair of the HDP Peoples and Beliefs Commission.

 

Tülay Hatimoğulları, co-chair of the HDP Peoples and Beliefs Commission, issued a written statement today, anniversary of the Dersim Genocide.

 

Tülay Hatimoğulları MP said: "The nation-state administrators, established within the framework of one nation, one religion and one language, drafted the "Law on Administration of the Tunceli Province" (Tunceli Vilayetinin İdaresi Hakkında Kanun), no. 2884 of 25 December 1935. With this law the name Dersim was replaced by that of Tunceli.

 

According to official institution data, 13,160 people were killed in the Dersim Massacre and 11,818 people were exiled to western provinces. However, according to local sources the truth is quite different: around 70 thousand people were massacred in this genocide, which was carried out targeting without discrimination women and children.

The people of Dersim never learned the fate of children who survived the massacre and were given up for adoption. No news were given about the so called missing daughters of Dersim."

 

Hatimoğulları added: "The state must face the truth of this brutal massacre, 83 years on. For this, a Truth and Acknowledgement Commission should be established. The archives should be opened, court records should be presented to the public, and the perpetrators involved in the massacre should be tried in absentia. The burial places of Seyid Rıza and his companions, who were executed on 15 November 1937, should be disclosed, and the documents related to the exiled and adopted children / the missing daughters of Dersim should be released. The name Dersim should be officially put back in use.

The state should apologize to the families of the people of Dersim on the basis of acknowledging the truth."