Esat Oktay Yıldıran (15 February 1949 – 22 October 1988) was a

Turkish military The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF; , TSK) are the military forces of the Republic of Turkey. The TAF consist of the Land Forces, the Naval Forces and the Air Forces. The Chief of the General Staff is the Commander of the Armed Forces. In wartime, ...

officer who was appointed governor of the

Diyarbakır Prison Diyarbakır Prison (; ) is a prison located in Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey. It was established in 1980 as an E-type prison by the Ministry of Justice. After the September 12, 1980 Turkish coup d'état, the facility was transferred to milita ...

after the

1980 Turkish coup d'état The 1980 Turkish coup d'état (), headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic of Turkey, the previous having been the 1960 coup and the 1971 coup by memorandum. During ...

. During the PKK insurgency, Yıldıran became known for his extensive

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

of PKK aligned

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

in the

. Many inmates either committed suicide or died on hunger strikes in the penitentiary.

Career

After taking part in the

Turkish invasion of Cyprus The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974 and progressed in two phases over the following month. Taking place upon a background of Cypriot intercommunal violence, intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots, Greek and Turkish Cy ...

in 1974, Yıldıran was promoted to

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

. In 1980, after the

military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

which took place the same year, he was appointed to the

Kenan Evren Ahmet Kenan Evren (17 July 1917 – 9 May 2015) was a Turkish military officer and dictator who served as the seventh president of Turkey from 1980 to 1989. He assumed the post by leading the 1980 military coup. On 18 June 2014, a Turkish cou ...

as internal security officer. He tortured prisoners with cruel methods. Moreover, he viewed prison as a school in which inmates would be subjected to

Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...

. Yıldıran beat, coerced and tortured the male and female prisoners. Under his force, inmates were forced to eat human excrement, doused in sewer water, tortured with electric shocks and such other torture methods. Yıldıran had a

German shepherd The German Shepherd, also known in Britain as an Alsatian, is a German Dog breed, breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various Old German herding dogs, traditional German herding dog ...

called "Co" ("Joe"), which was trained to bite the genitals of naked prisoners; all inmates were obligated to salute the dog.Welat Zeydanlıoğlu
Torture and Turkification in the Diyarbakır Military Prison
, undated, accessed on 21 May 2011. More information on the author can be found at http://welatzeydanlioglu.wordpress.com/ . Sites to download the report as pdf file include

Assassination

On 22 October 1988, Yıldıran was on a public bus which stopped by at a station, and 2 suspects entered the bus and sat behind him. After the bus halted at another stop, moments later the doors opened one of the two suspects opened fired. He was shot dead on the bus in

Ümraniye Ümraniye () is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Istanbul Province, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 46 km2, and its population is 723,760 (2023). It was separated from Üsküdar in 1987. It is bordered by Çekmeköy t ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

. According to some reports, his firing assassin yelled "Laz Kemal sends his greetings" (referring to one of the inmates,

Kemal Pir Kemal Pir, also known as Laz Kemal (1952 in Güzeloluk, Gümüşhane Province – 7 September 1982 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) was a Laz-Turkish Marxist–Leninist revolutionary and one of the ethnically Laz founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Part ...

) before shooting him. He died in front of his wife and two children. On the 26th of October, he was buried and declared a

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...

by the government. The

PKK The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurdish militant political organization and armed gue ...

took responsibility of the attack, after a anonymous man contacted the Cumhuriyet Gazétte later that day and stated that; "Esat Oktay Yıldıran, who was punished in Kısıklı today, was killed by the

. Bijî Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê! (Long live the Kurdistan Worker‘s Party!)" As a result, the two suspects were identified as members of the

, but never fully identified and were never caught.

Aftermath

Yıldıran's torture methods were the subject of the Turkish television series "Bu Kalp Seni Unutur mu?" Various books have also been written about Yıldıran's torture practices. One of the most famous books is Mehdi Zana's "Hell No. 5. Diary from a Turkish Prison". Yıldıran was honored as a hero and martyr by

Turkish nationalists Turkish nationalism () is nationalism among the people of Turkey and individuals whose national identity is Turkish. Turkish nationalism consists of political and social movements and sentiments prompted by a love for Turkish culture, Turkish ...

. In 2010, the

City Council added his name to a memorial in

Fatih Fatih () is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 15 km2, and its population is 368,227 (2022). It is home to almost all of the provincial authorities (including the mayor's office, police headquarters, metro ...

.Tageszeitung Milliyet vom 1. Oktober 2010
/ref> In 2013, a Turkish court sentenced the journalist Rasim Ozan Kütahyalı to a suspended prison term of ten months and fined him for writing that Yıldıran was a torturer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yildiran, Esat Oktay Turkish Army officers 1949 births 1988 deaths Assassinated Turkish military personnel People murdered in Turkey Deaths by firearm in Turkey Turkish military personnel of the Cyprus conflicts Murder in Ümraniye 1988 murders in Turkey Torturers