78’s Initiative will hold a demonstration in Diyarbakýr on 30 September to demand Diyarbakýr prison being turned into a museum. The demonstration was called to protest against the government’s alleged plans to turn the prison into a shopping center.

The mass meeting by 78’s Initiative Commission for Justice and Research on Diyarbakýr Prison Truth will voice a common demand for the prison where around 60 people lost their life under torture in the period of 12 September 1980 military coup.

In a statement about the demonstration, the Commission underlined that Diyarbakýr Prison hold a symbolic place in the collective memory of Kurds and is for them the live expression of the resistance spirit against injustice and unfairness against the people. “The destruction of the prison cannot help to forget the crime against humanity and Kurds will never accept that”, the Commission noted and added that; “We ask for the prison to be transformed into a Human Rights Museum so that it, as a symbol of peace and brotherhood, could serve to the reconstruction of the collective memory.”