Hikmet Fidan

Hikmet Fidan (* in Batman ; † July 6, 2005 in Diyarbakır ) was a Kurdish intellectual and politician. He was a founding member and deputy chairman of HADEP . He was shot dead on the street in 2005. Fidan's family and the Turkish media blamed the PKK for the murder.

Life

Hikmet Fidan was actively involved in all Kurdish parties, each of which was banned. These included the HEP , DEP , ÖZDEP , HADEP and DEHAP . Fidan was HADEP chairman of the Istanbul province and vice chairman of the party as a whole. Fidan also ran for a seat in parliament for DEHAP in the Antalya constituency in 2002. After Öcalan's capture, he considered his cooperation with the Turkish authorities to be a form of surrender and temporarily joined the PWD founded by Osman Öcalan , which was in opposition to the PKK.

death

Fidan was shot dead in the neck in the street. Eyewitnesses reported two perpetrators. PKK member Serkan Şitilay, who was killed in fighting in 2009, was later identified as a suspected shooter. Fidan was buried in Ömerli . Very few people came to the funeral. The city administration refused to transport the body to Ömerli in a city administration hearse. The press saw this as an indication that the PKK was behind the murder, since the PKK-affiliated city administration of Diyarbakır usually makes its vehicle fleet available for PKK martyrs.

During interrogation, the suspects testified that they had been forced to arrange a meeting with Fidan under threats of death by the perpetrator, whom they described as the PKK's “mountain cadre”. Of the four defendants, two were sentenced to twice life imprisonment and one was sentenced to six years and three months for PKK membership. One defendant was acquitted.

Reactions

Fidan's son Zinnar made the PKK responsible for the murder shortly after the murder. Another son, Tarık Fidan, said, according to the annual report of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey , that his father had been threatened on the phone by high-ranking PKK members Mehmet Ören, Murat Karayılan and Zübeyir Aydar . Fidan's wife, Siyam Fidan, said Hikmet Fidan spoke out against the armed struggle and believed that the DTH (forerunner of the PKK-affiliated DTP ) led by Leyla Zana could be a bad continuation of the past. In this context, there were also threats from Murat Karayılan in particular , as the PKK wanted to prevent a solution from being found without Öcalan. Not even his closest acquaintances came to Fidan's funeral who had previously addressed him as " Ağabey ".

On July 19, 2005, the prominent journalist Hasan Cemal complained about the silence of the Kurdish intelligentsia in the face of the murder, blaming the fear of the totalitarian PKK.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Radikal newspaper of October 17, 2008
2. ↑ Hürriyet of April 17, 2009
3. ↑ www.habervitrini.com of October 25, 2005
4. ↑ Radikal daily newspaper, October 17, 2008
5. ↑ 2005 annual report of the Turkish human rights foundation TIHV ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Milliyet from 2005
7. ↑ www.ab.gov.tr