Riots in Gazi in 1995
The unrest in Istanbul's Gazi district ignited on March 12, 1995. Two years after the arson attack in Sivas, the attack and the police were again directed against the Alevi population in Turkey . According to official sources, 15 people were killed by the police in the incidents . In Turkish, the events are also referred to as "Gazi events" or "Gazi massacres".
course
The starting point for the events was the night of March 12, 1995. Unknown perpetrators hijacked a taxi and murdered the taxi driver, they steered the taxi into the Gazi district of Istanbul, which is mostly Alevis. The perpetrators shot randomly at café visitors from the hijacked taxi. One person died during the attack and another 25 people were injured. Although a police station was only a few hundred meters away, the police did not intervene. As the situation in the neighborhood had already heated up after people protested in front of a police station a few days earlier about the death of a man in police custody, a crowd gathered, cars were overturned and set on fire, shops were pelted with stones and barricades were erected. Now the police stepped in, the street was cordoned off. After the crowd and the police stood face to face for a few hours, stones being thrown and slogans chanted, the situation escalated in the morning hours of March 13 when demonstrators climbed an armored car. After a scuffle, the police shot into the crowd and chased the demonstrators through the streets. Two more people were shot and many were wounded. The neighborhood was surrounded, the military took control and a curfew was imposed. Nevertheless, on March 15, the funeral of the victims led to another demonstration of several thousand people. Alevis also demonstrated in the Ümraniye district in the Anatolian part of Istanbul, with the police also shooting into the crowd and killing four people.
Judicial processing
Twenty police officers were tried for the death of 9 people and assault on 5 people. The process was moved from Istanbul to Trabzon for security reasons . After 5 years and 31 days of trial, the district court pronounced its verdict on November 5, 2001. Police officer Adem Albayrak was sentenced to 40 months in prison for killing four people. Police officer Mehmet Gündoğan was sentenced to 20 months in prison for killing two people. The sentences were suspended under the Conditional Release Act.
As with the Sivas arson attack, numerous Alevis gather in front of the Cem Evi in Gazi on March 12th every year to demonstrate and mourn the victims of the events.
Individual evidence
- ↑ NDR: 7 days ... Istanbul. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
- ↑ Martin Sökefeld: Struggling for recognition: the Alevi Movement in Germany and in transnational space . Berghahn Books, 2008 p. 69 ISBN 9781845454784
- ↑ The current human rights situation in Turkey before the EU accession negotiations (PDF) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. P. 17
