Revolutionary Communards Party/United Freedom Forces (BÖG) Chief Commander Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu fell a martyr in a clash with ISIS during the Raqqa operation on May 9, 2017. 

Bayraktaroğlu was arrested during the Gezi movement protests in Turkey in May 2013, and released after a period of time in jail. He was one of the leading revolutionaries who grew up in the revolutionary movement of Turkey in the 1990s.

The Revolutionary Communards Party/Unity (DKP-Birlik) released a statement paying tribute to the commander, defining him as “a revolutionary and a leader who lived up to his claim to make a revolution.”

“He was not an ordinary revolutionary. He was always either leading others in a barricade or in the middle of a direct confrontation with the police forces,” the DKP/Birlik said in a written statement on Monday, which further included the following:

“Undoubtedly, it has always been very difficult to break the status quo of the traditions that emerged in the Turkish revolutionary movement. Reformist tendencies are always favoured within the revolutionary groups. Defying this juncture rigorously, he was the organizer of a fundamental change. He was not only a subject of the revolutionary process in Rojava. He broke away from the tradition in order to shape the future. He followed in the footsteps of Orhan Yılmazkaya who generated an actual repercussion of the revolutionary breakthrough undertaken by Mahir, İbrahim, Deniz and their companions 50 years ago, and set himself to build a revolutionary war organization on the firing line.

Based on the legacy of Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu, who was martyred on the Raqqa Front on May 9, and our martyrs, our party DKP/Unity will strive for the liberation of humanity and emancipation of the  individual.

We will remain committed to the goals and ideals of our immortals, expand the united revolutionary movement, and make all times ours!"