Abdülmelik Fırat (1934,

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. The city uses the double-headed eagle as ...

– 29 September 2009,

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 ...

) was a prominent Turkish- Kurdish politician. He was the grandson of

Sheikh Said Sheikh Said of Palu, Elazığ, Palu ( ku, شێخ سەعید, translit=Şêx Seîd, 1865 – June 29, 1925) was a Kurds, Kurdish sheikh, the main leader of the Sheikh Said rebellion and a Sheikh of the Naqshbandi Tariqa, order. He was born in ...

, leader of the 1925 Sheikh Said rebellion.

Early life and education

His grandfather Sheikh Said was a Sheikh of the

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

Naqshbandi The Naqshbandi ( fa, نقشبندی)), Neqshebendi ( ku, نه‌قشه‌به‌ندی), and Nakşibendi (in Turkish) is a major Sunni order of Sufism. Its name is derived from Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari. Naqshbandi masters trace their ...

order, which had great influence in the Kurdish population in Turkey. Following the defeat of the rebellion led by Sheikh Said and the subsequent execution of him, his surviving relatives were exiled. Several returned in 1929, when the law allowed it. He was born in 1934 in Erzurum and attended school in Diyarbakir.

Career

Fırat joined the Democrat Party (DP), and was elected to parliament in 1957. He was imprisoned after the

1960 Turkish coup d'état The 1960 Turkish coup d'état ( tr, 27 Mayıs Darbesi) was the first coup d'état in the Republic of Turkey. It took place on May 27, 1960. The coup was staged by a group of 38 young Turkish military officers, acting outside the military chain ...

and was sentenced to death in the

Yassıada trials The Yassıada Trials were a series of criminal cases in Turkey brought by the military regime against politicians of the formerly ruling Democrat Party. Following the coup which removed the Democrats from power on May 27, 1960, the military junta ...

, later commuted to imprisonment.

Today's Zaman ''Today's Zaman'' (Zaman is Turkish for 'time' or 'age') was an English-language daily newspaper based in Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental ...

, 30 September 2009
Prominent Kurdish politician Abdulmelik Fırat dies in Ankara
Fırat re-joined politics in 1991 with the

True Path Party The True Path Party ( tr, Doğru Yol Partisi, DYP) was a centre-right political party in Turkey, active from 1983 to 2007. For most of its history, the party's central figure was Süleyman Demirel, a former Prime Minister of Turkey who previously ...

, and represented it in the

Grand National Assembly of Turkey The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ( tr, ), usually referred to simply as the TBMM or Parliament ( tr, or ''Parlamento''), is the unicameral Turkish legislature. It is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by the Turkish Cons ...

, but left the party in disagreement over its policies towards the Kurds. He remained in the assembly as an independent, losing his seat in the 1995 general elections. For some time, he held sympathies for the

People's Democracy Party People's Democracy Party ( tr, Halkın Demokrasi Partisi, HADEP) was a Kurdish population, Kurdish political party in Turkey. Murat Bozlak founded the party on 11 May 1994. The party disbanded in 2003. History Bozlak's first chairmanship P ...

(HADEP) before in 2001 he established the

Rights and Freedoms Party The Rights and Freedoms Party ( ku, Partiya Maf û Azadiyan, tr, Hak ve Özgürlükler Partisi, abbreviated HAK-PAR) is a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. Advocating federalism as a means of increasing Kurdish autonomy in the south ...

( tr, Hak ve Özgürlükler Partisi, HAK-PAR) 2001 in competition of it. He retired from politics on health grounds in 2006. He died in September 2009 in a hospital in

, where he was treated for

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

Political positions

Despite being a harsh critic of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...

(PKK), he was imprisoned for two months for aiding the PKK in 1996. Fırat said the PKK had been set up by the Turkish " deep state" and worked closely with the

Turkish Gendarmerie The Gendarmerie General Command ( tr, Jandarma Genel Komutanlığı) is the national Gendarmerie force of the Republic of Turkey. It is a service branch of the Turkish Ministry of Interior responsible for the maintenance of the public order in a ...

JITEM Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele or Jandarma İstihbarat Teşkilatı (abbr. ''JİTEM'' or ''JİT''; English: "Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism" or "Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization") is the unofficial and illegal intel ...

intelligence unit, and that leader

Abdullah Öcalan Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish and Kurdish for "uncle"), is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from ...

had worked with the

National Intelligence Organization The National Intelligence Organization ( tr, Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT) is the state intelligence agency of Turkey. Established in 1965 to replace National Security Service, its aim is to gather information about the current and po ...

before founding the PKK. In 2008, he also stated the pro-Kurdish

Democratic Society Party The Democratic Society Party ( tr, Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP, Kurdish: ''Partiya Civaka Demokratîk'', PCD) was a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social-democratic and had observer status in the So ...

(DTP) was founded by the PKK, and that 80 percent of Kurds do not vote for this party.

Publications

His book ''The Euphrates flows sadly'' was the issue of an investigation on separatist propaganda in 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Firat, Abdulmek 1934 births 2009 deaths Democrat Party (Turkey, current) politicians Deputies of Erzurum Democrat Party (Turkey, 1946–1961) politicians 20th-century Turkish politicians Turkish prisoners sentenced to death Prisoners sentenced to death by Turkey Rights and Freedoms Party politicians Turkish Kurdish politicians