Nationalist opposition leader slammed for calling past political murders ‘honorable’

Meral Aksener, leader of the nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party, is facing backlash from human rights activists and the families of political murder victims in Turkey for describing political killings in the past as “honorable.”

Akşener, who referred to the killing of a nationalist figure, Sinan Ateş, in Turkey in late 2022 during a speech in Sivas province on Thursday, said Ateş was murdered in a cowardly way, different from past political murders.

“Sinan Ateş was murdered by drug dealers. We have witnessed political murders in our past, but they were honorable; therefore, none of us were afraid,” she said.

The 38-year-old Ateş, an academic and the former president of the Grey Wolves (Ülkü Ocakları), the youth wing of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), was fatally shot in the capital city of Ankara on December 30, 2022. His murder in broad daylight sent shockwaves across the country, sparking a debate about the power struggles within the country’s nationalists.

Human rights advocates and people who have lost family members to political killings have criticized Akşener’s statements, recounting their own experiences and noting that there is nothing “honorable” about political murders.

The sister of Metin Göktepe, a Kurdish reporter working for the leftist Evrensel daily who was tortured and murdered in police custody in Istanbul in 1996, accused Aksener of being one of the people who protected her brother’s killers, helping them evade justice for a long time.

“You are very dishonorable as [one of] the perpetrators of unsolved murders,” Meryem Goktepe added on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Evet çok mertçe(!) Metin Göktepe'nin katillerini uzun süre adaletten kaçırarak, sakladınız ve korudunuz… Faili meçhullerin müsebbibi olarak çok namertsiniz, çook…#ArşivUnutmaz https://t.co/JdaDMsHhgS

— meryem göktepe (@Meryemce_34) January 18, 2024

Mazlum Çimen, who lost his father Nesimi Çimen in the 1993 massacre in Sivas, also accused Aksener of being indifferent to their suffering.

“According to what we heard from Akşener, all our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and siblings who were killed in political assassinations were killed “honorably!” … What kind of statement is that?” Çimen said.

Meral Akşener den duydugumuza göre, siyasi suikastlerde öldürülen bütün abilerimiz ablalarımız babalarımız analarımız kardeşlerimiz MERTÇE ! Öldürülmüş.. Ama yani Hiç olmazsa mertçe ÖLDÜRÜLMÜŞLER.! Bu nasıl bir laf yaa 😳 Acının Beşiğini sallamak…😔

— Mazlum Çimen (@MazlumCimen) January 19, 2024

On July 2, 1993 an angry mob torched the Madımak Hotel in Sivas, killing 35 people, mostly members of the Alevi sect, after a group of people gathered in front of the hotel following Friday prayer to protest left-wing Turkish intellectual Aziz Nesin, who was hated by religious Sunnis in Turkey as he had attempted to publish Salman Rushdie‘s controversial novel “The Satanic Verses.”

Eren Keskin, a prominent human rights activist and lawyer in Turkey, stated that a statement that defends violence like this can only be made in such a dystopian reality.

“[This is] terrifying, even beyond terrifying! We know who she means by ‘honorable murder,’ don’t we? … She’s talking about our deceased,” Keskin said.

Korkunç hatta korkunç ötesi!! ‘Mertçe cinayet’ dediği kimler biliyoruz değil mi? Şiddeti savunan bu açıklama ancak böylesine bir Distopya da yapılabilir! Bizim ölülerimizden söz ediyor👇🏿 https://t.co/1Dt74agqz9

— Eren Keskin (@KeskinEren1) January 18, 2024

An analysis published last year on the website of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s domestic security agency, revealed that a group named “Bozkurtlar,” founded by Alparslan Türkeş, the founder of MHP and the Grey Wolves, committed more than 600 political murders between 1968 and 1980.

Unsolved murders and enforced disappearances were also frequent occurrences in the country in the 1990s.