Peace activist Ali Şükran Aktaş died of cancer in Izmir. He was part of the peace group from Europe that traveled to Turkey in 1999 to find a solution to the Kurdish question and was imprisoned. His funeral will take place today.
Ali Şükran Aktaş died on 12 August at the age of 58 in a hospital in Izmir from the effects of cancer. Aktaş, who was a Kurdish alevi, was part of the peace group from Europe that traveled to Turkey in 1999 to find a solution to the Kurdish question and was imprisoned.
A few weeks before he went to Turkey, a first peace group from the mountains of Kurdistan had followed a call from Abdullah Öcalan and was also arrested in Turkey.
The group from Europe, which included Ali Şükran Aktaş, Haydar Ergül, Aygül Bidav, İmam Canpolat, Yusuf Kıyak, Aysel Doğan, Hacı Çelik and Dilek Kurt, nevertheless flew to Istanbul on 29 October 1999. They were also immediately arrested and later sentenced to prison terms of between seven and fifteen years.
Aktaş was released in 2005 and stayed in Turkey. Due to his continued commitment to peace, he was imprisoned for another nine months in 2013. In 2020, he was elected to the board of directors of a peace foundation (Barış Vakfı).
The body of Ali Şükran Aktaş was taken from the hospital to an Alevi community center in the province of Izmir and from there to his hometown of Malatya (Meletî). His remains were accompanied by DEM MP Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit and Haydar Ergül.
The funeral is scheduled to take place this morning, Wednesday, in Darica, Aktaş's home village. Among those expected to attend the funeral are DEM chair Tülay Hatimoğulları, DBP chairs Çiğdem Kılıçgün Uçar and Keskin Bayındır, as well as politician Sabahat Tuncel, who was recently released after several years in prison.
