The October 10 Memorial, which was erected in commemoration of the 103 victims of a 2015 terrorist attack in Ankara, was painted gray by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality after allegedly being vandalized by a group called the National Turkish Union of Students (MTTB), the Evrensel newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The memorial was built in remembrance of the 103 people who lost their lives in the deadly Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist attack carried out during the Meeting for Labor, Peace and Democracy held on Oct. 10, 2015 at the main railway station in Ankara.
“We will file a complaint against those who perpetrated this vandalism. We want to see those responsible detained,” said lawyer Mehtap Sakinci Coşgun, head of the 10 Ekim-Der association, founded in solidarity with victims of the attack.
Pointing out that this was the fourth time the memorial had been attacked, Coşgun claimed that this time the vandalism was particularly provocative in that it happened during the month of October, the anniversary of the terrorist attack.
“They cannot even tolerate the remembrance of those who lost their lives let alone respect our pain. We were asking the state to build a new monument while it was unable to even protect this one,” Coşgun said, adding that no investigation has been launched even though the perpetrators are easily identifiable in surveillance camera footage from around the area.
Sezgin Tanrıkulu, a Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy from İstanbul, tweeted a photo of municipal workers painting the memorial gray.
“History will never forget the assaults on this memorial. What about you, is this what you think our 103 citizens who were almost blatantly allowed to be murdered deserve?” Tanrıkulu tweeted, mentioning Ankara Mayor Mustafa Tuna.