Vedat Aydın (19537July 1991) was a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

politician and human rights defender. He was married to Sükran Aydın.

Early life and education

He was born in 1953 in a village in

Bismil Bismil ( ku, Bismil) is a district of Diyarbakır Province Diyarbakır Province ( tr, Diyarbakır ili, Zazaki: Suke Diyarbekır ku, Parêzgeha Amedê) is a Provinces of Turkey, province in southeastern Turkey. The province covers an area of ...

, Diyarbakir. He graduated from the Literary department of the Vocational School in Diyarbakir in 1979. He became a founding member and delegate of the Diyarbakir branch of the

Turkish Human Rights Association The Human Rights Association ( tr, İnsan Hakları Derneği, İHD) is an NGO for advancing Human rights in Turkey, founded in 1986 and headquartered in Ankara. Establishment The İHD's origins can be traced to the victims of the purges in the ...

(IHD).

Kurdish rights activist

At the annual meeting of the IHD in October 1990, he gave the first public speech in

Kurdish language Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish constitutes a dialect continuum, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language ...

in Turkey, which was forbidden. The decision to make the speech in Kurdish was taken by the Kurdish delegates, but caught others by surprise. Many other non-Kurdish delegates left the congress in protest while Aydin kept on with his speech, which was translated by Ahmet Zeki Okçuoglu into Turkish. Aydin was detained and arrested in Ulucanlar prison,

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

. After his release he was elected the head of the

People's Labor Party The People's Labour Party ( tr, Halkın Emek Partisi, HEP), sometimes translated as the People's Work Party, was a pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey. It was founded on 7 June 1990 by seven members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly expell ...

(HEP) in Diyarbakir.

Assassination

He was killed in July 1991. On 5 July, armed men identifying themselves as police officers showed up at his home and forced him into a car. On 7 July his body was found under a bridge just outside the boundaries of the province Diyarbakir, in the Maden district of the province of Elazıĝ. He was immediately buried at the Maden Municipality, but later an

autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...

was done and after it was confirmed the body belonged to Aydın, he was reburied in Diyarbakir. His skull was fractured, his legs broken und about 15 bullets were shot in his body. 8 bullets were found in his body. No one was charged for the murder of Vedat Aydin. At his funeral in Diyarbakir on 10 July, the police fired

live ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...

into a crowd of thousands of mourning people. The police claimed stones were thrown from within the crowd, eyewitnesses denied this, though. As a result, 7 to 13 people were killed and up to 100 people were injured. Protests against these events took place in the next days Diyarbakir,

Nusaybin Nusaybin (; '; ar, نُصَيْبِيْن, translit=Nuṣaybīn; syr, ܢܨܝܒܝܢ, translit=Nṣībīn), historically known as Nisibis () or Nesbin, is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009 and is ...

Lice Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been recognized as an order, infraorder, or a parvorder, as a result o ...

, Uludere and

. Nobody was charged with the killing of the attendants of the funeral cortege. On 4 December 1993 a delegation of DEP parliamentarians came under an armed attack as they were on a mission in

Batman Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on ...

trying to find out who killed Aydın. As a result, the MP for Mardin

Mehmet Sincar Mehmet Sincar (1953 in İkipınar, Mardin Province – 4 September 1993 in Batman) was a Kurdish politician from Turkey and a Democracy Party (DEP) member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. He was assassinated in September 1993 togeth ...

and the local party leader of Batman were killed and MP for Batman Nizamettin Toğuç was injured together with three others. The investigation into the murder of Vedat Aydın went on, but in the year 2009, 18 years after his murder, a court in

Malatya Malatya ( hy, Մալաթիա, translit=Malat'ya; Syro-Aramaic ܡܠܝܛܝܢܐ Malīṭīná; ku, Meletî; Ancient Greek: Μελιτηνή) is a large city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city ha ...

decided to close the investigation about the murder of Aydin and returned the file to Diyarbakir due to lack of jurisdiction.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aydin, Vedat 1953 births 1991 deaths Kurdish murder victims Turkish murder victims Turkish Kurdish people 20th-century Turkish lawyers People from Diyarbakır People murdered in Turkey Turkish Kurdish politicians Assassinated Turkish Kurdish politicians