Erdal Eren

Erdal Eren (born September 25, 1964 or 1963 in Şebinkarahisar , Giresun , † December 13, 1980 in Ankara ) was a Turkish student who was hanged . His death made him a symbol of the 1980 military coup .

Life

Eren came from a humble background. His father was a teacher and the family had five children. His official date of birth was September 25, 1961. Eren attended a vocational school in Ankara and was a member of the revolutionary association Yurtsever Devrimci Gençlik Derneği . Eren took early February 1980 in Ankara at the height of the clashes and political murders on the eve of the 1980 military coup in protests against the death of a comrade by the hand of the bodyguard of the Minister Cengiz Gökçek part. There was a state of emergency . There were shootings with the security forces during the protests. Eren fled into a garden and shot approaching security guards. The soldier Zekeriya Önge was hit in the back and died. Eren was arrested and tried with two dozen other people on the same day. After four days of trial (February 13th and 20th and March 5th and 17th), Eren was sentenced to death a month and a half later. While the verdict was being delivered, Eren was beaten up by Jandarma soldiers for heckling . The judgment was reversed and remanded twice. After final confirmation and approval by the National Security Council , Eren was hanged about ten months after the crime. Savaş Ay visited him in the cell with Emin Çölaşan and took the last picture of him, which posthumously gave Eren a certain prominence. Ay interviewed Eren while Çölaşan did not utter a word. The title of Çölaşan's Önce İnsanım Sonra Gazeteci (“First I am a person, then a journalist”) recalls the visit to death row. Because immediately after the visit he addressed the following sentence to Ay: "My son, don't forget, first we are human, then a journalist."

The judge of the revision instance, who overturned the death sentence twice, pointed out several inconsistencies in the judgment 28 years after the judgment. The victim was hit in the back, but Eren shot from the front. It was also not forensically clarified whether the bullet even came from Eren's weapon. Furthermore, there was no evidence of intent either. According to the attorney at the time, Erens, the autopsy did not match what happened. Zekeriya Önge was said to have been shot at close range, even though the distance between Eren and him was 12.5 m. The trajectory was opposite to Eren's position. Putschist Kenan Evren commented on the verdict with the following sentence that became popular: “Shouldn't we hang him and then feed him?” Erdal Eren's fate inspired numerous artists. Sezen Aksu sang about him in her song Son Bakış and Ahmet Kaya dedicated the song Yaşamadın Sen to him . Eren also appears in songs by Teoman Yakupoğlu , Mor ve Ötesi and Grup Yorum . Eren's execution is staged in an episode of the series Hatırla Sevgili , as well as in the film Zincirbozan . The award-winning documentary Oğlunuz Erdal portrays Eren's fate.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Daily newspaper Radikal from September 12, 2007 ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Saygı Öztürk: Evren, bu zalimliği Yapti mı? ( Turkish ) Sözcü . May 12, 2015. Retrieved May 12, 2015.
3. ↑ 17 yaşında idam edilen Erdal Eren'in son fotoğrafı En Son Haber of December 15, 2007 (Turkish)
4. ↑ Vatan newspaper from September 12, 2007
5. ↑ Cumhuriyet, March 2, 2015

literature

• Ertuğrul Mavioğlu: Apoletli Adalet - Bir 12 Eylül Hesaplaşması II. Istanbul 2006

Web links

• Erdal Eren 31 yıl önce bugün 17 yaşındayken idam edildi. Milliyet report, December 13, 2011