Mekap
The Mekap is a Turkish sneaker that became famous as a symbol of the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Manufacturing company
The manufacturing company was founded in 1972 by the Kurşunoğlu family with Turkish, Italian and Jewish partners in Istanbul . It also bears the name Mekap. The know-how came from Italy. The company was sold to the İskender family after the economic crisis due to a shortage of foreign currency in 2005, and they relocated production to Trabzon . The Mekap shoe made up only a small part of sales from the 2000s onwards. Since 1996 the company has mainly been producing work shoes. The company achieved 70 percent of sales in 2010 with work shoes . The current name is “Mekap Deri ve Ayakkabı San. Tic. A.Ş. “(Mekap Aktiengesellschaft for the production and trade of and with leather and shoes). In 2014 the tax authority in Trabzon gave the legal form as "Ltd. Şti." (Turkish Limited Liability Company).
History of the shoe
The Mekap was the first shoe made in Turkey with polyurethane soles . The upper is made of leather. Initially, the shoe was available in sizes 31 to 43. The shoe initially cost more than double the price of other plastic-soled shoes on the market. The initially sluggish sales picked up after an advertising campaign, and in the most successful period from 1977 to 1980, according to the company owner Kenan Kurşunoğlu, six to eight thousand units were produced daily. This was largely due to import restrictions that made foreign brands unaffordable for the population.
In the 1970s, the Mekap stood for the political identity of the student body in Turkey at that time. The parka, the brand of cigarettes and the shape of the mustache were also part of this image. The Mekap was the shoe of the country's educated and urban class.
In advertising campaigns, it was emphasized that the shoe was comfortable, robust and healthy ( rahat, sağlam ve sağlıklı ) and that it could not be copied . The latter was primarily aimed at product piracy .
Symbol of the PKK
After the lifting of import restrictions by Prime Minister Turgut Özal's neoliberal economic policy , sales fell significantly. But it was also Özal who helped Mekap to become known as the shoe of the PKK in the 1980s by defining the PKK as a handful of Çapulcu who wear their Mekaps for walks in the mountains.
The manufacturer has been exposed to hostility and allegations since the early 1980s that the shoe supports the PKK. In 2010, the company temporarily planned to change this reputation with the production of women's shoes. In 2013, one of the partners wrote a letter to the then prime minister assuring them that they would be ready to stop production immediately if this would help end the terrorism.
However, the Mekap was also part of the equipment of the special forces of the Turkish police , and the village guards , who only served the fight against the PKK, wore the shoe.
The shoe preferred by the PKK was a beige-colored lightweight sports shoe with a leather upper. According to the company, this type accounts for about five percent of sales of this shoe. In 2006 it was reported that the PKK had forbidden its fighters to wear Mekap in order to make it more difficult for them to be tracked by sniffer dogs.
In 2015, the gendarmerie confiscated a shipment of shoe clothing intended for the fighting units of the PKK. According to the report, it became clear that the organization now preferred shoes from the outdoor outfitter The North Face .
At the beginning of 2018, 1,240 pairs of PKK Mekaps were seized in depots in the Tunceli province .
Law Enforcement and Incidents
The Mekap is the only shoe that was temporarily banned in Turkey because it was regarded as a distinguishing mark of the PKK. In certain periods sales were also controlled by the state.
In 1999, two students were shot dead in Bingöl because they were believed to be terrorists because of their Mekap shoes. During the 2015 court proceedings, for example, it became known that when those involved realized the mistake, the special forces had put PKK weapons on the victims in order to cover up the crime.
In a village in the province of Bingöl , an old man was sentenced to six years in prison for buying five or six pairs of Mekaps in 2007 at the behest of a group of PKK fighters who had invaded his village, and on the way back from one Traffic control noticed. The verdict was based on support for a terrorist organization.
In 2014, “a Mekap-type shoe” on a statue of the public prosecutor's office was considered evidence that the sculptor wanted to depict the terrorist Zeynep Kınacı . The statue was confiscated and the sculptor arrested.
In 2016, the Turkish regulatory authority for radio and television RTÜK imposed a fine on a broadcaster amounting to two percent of the annual income of the television broadcaster JIYAN TV because actors in the clips wore the Mekap and regional clothing. In addition, a clip indicating that the Mekap was shown in close-up was banned.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Milliyet daily newspaper, December 7, 2003
- ↑ a b Caykara daily newspaper from September 30, 2010
- ↑ a b c Sabah newspaper, February 26, 2004
- ↑ News page ensonhaber.com from May 5, 2013
- ↑ Radikal daily newspaper, September 29, 2010
- ↑ a b daily newspaper Hürriyet of April 5, 2013
- ↑ News page yenimesaj.com.tr of June 21, 2006
- ↑ News page haberler.com from September 18, 2015
- ↑ Hürriyet daily newspaper from January 21, 2018
- ↑ Die Zeit “Visiting Terrorists”, February 29, 2016
- ↑ Milliyet daily newspaper from February 15, 2015
- ↑ Article in the daily newspaper Radikal from December 9, 2013 (Turkish)
- ↑ Radikal daily newspaper of February 28, 2015
- ↑ Milliyet daily newspaper from February 6, 2016
- ↑ Cumhuriyet daily newspaper, February 6, 2016