In a written statement, Tülay Hatimoğulları, HDP deputy chair of the Peoples and Beliefs Commission, said: “It has been 95 years since the death of Sheikh Said and 47 fighters. They were executed in Diyarbakır Dağkapı Square on 29 June 1925. We commemorate Sheikh Said and his 47 comrades with respect on the anniversary of their murder.”

Hatimoğulları added: “Sheikh Said and his friends have been explained in different ways to the people since the day they were executed, and the struggle for rights and justice for the Kurdish people has been reduced to a riot.”

The statement continued with the following: “In 1923, the legal regulations made with the declaration of the Republic began to emerge as a product of a strict centralized understanding of state policies. The biggest turning point in the political history of the Republic of Turkey coincided with these policy changes. Policies based on the rejection of the multicultural heritage of these lands were produced within the framework of the centralization of a nation-based mentality based on ethnic identity. Said policies deepened and with them the wounds between state and society in Turkey. Without addressing these wounds openly, it will not be possible to face in a responsible way this process leading to the Sheikh Said movement and the execution of Sheikh Said.”

For this reason, said the HDP, “those who played a role in the repression and the massacre during the execution of Sheikh Said and his friends should be exposed, and that period should be addressed. The burial sites of Sheikh Said and his 47 fighting friends should be disclosed to their families and the public.”