Fikri Sönmez

Fikri Sönmez (* 1938 in Ordu ; † May 4, 1985 in Amasya ) was mayor of the Fatsa district in the Turkish province of Ordu . He was removed from office in 1980 as part of a military action on the grounds that he had established a separatist and socialist people's government in the district.

youth

He was born in 1938 in the village of Kabakbağ in Ordu Province , according to other sources in Ordu City. As a child of a poor family, he started working in a tailoring shop after finishing elementary school.

In the 1960s he became a member of the Workers' Party of Turkey . He became an activist in the group Devrimci Gençlik ( Revolutionary Youth ), a political youth organization of the Turkish 1968 movement . In the political discussions and groupings at the end of the 1960s, he was close to the THKP-C group around Mahir Çayan . After the military coup on March 12, 1971 , he was arrested, served two years in prison, but was acquitted. After his release from prison, he continued with political activities in provinces on the Black Sea coast such as Giresun , Ordu and Samsun .

mayor

In 1979 he ran as an independent candidate in the mayoral election in Fatsa, although three assassinations had already been carried out on him, and was elected with 62% of the vote. As mayor, he changed the administrative structure of the district and built people's councils, which should be self-governing organs of the residents. On the one hand, he tried to enable the residents to participate actively in local politics and, on the other hand, to secure active social control over the district government. Every other month he organized a popular assembly, at which not only the politics of the local government, but also social problems such as alcoholism, gambling addiction, violence against women and the like. were discussed. These meetings also had the right to remove officials.

One of the most important actions of the self-government was the "campaign against the swamp". After the success of this action, a folk festival was organized, where many oppositional musicians performed.

While this self-government became a symbol of the left-wing organizations, the conservative and right-wing extremist politicians like the then Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel and the media sharply criticized it.

On July 11, 1980, self-government was ended by the so-called "point operation", although the local organizations of other political parties expressed themselves against military action. Not only military troops took part in the operation, but also masked members of right-wing extremist organizations. Sönmez was arrested and severely tortured.

In the following years he remained in prison. Due to the torture and conditions in the prison, his health deteriorated and he died of heart failure in prison on May 4, 1985.

See also

• Self-government in Fatsa