Vedat Aydın (19537July 1991) was a Kurdish politician in Turkey and human rights defender. He was married to Sükran Aydın.

Early life and education

He was born in 1953 in the village of Kazancı in Bismil District of Diyarbakir Province. 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 (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 Northwestern Iranian languages, Northwestern Iranian language or dialect continuum, group of languages spoken by Kurds in the region of Kurdistan, namely in southeast Turkish Kurdistan, Turkey, northern Iraqi Kurdistan, Ira ...

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 is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

. After his release he was elected the head of the People's Labor Party (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 (also referred to as 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 deat ...

was done and after it was confirmed the body belonged to Aydın, he was reburied in Diyarbakir. His skull was fractured, his legs broken and 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, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of oth ...

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,

Lice Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...

, Uludere and Bismil. 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 who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...

trying to find out who killed Aydın. As a result, the MP for Mardin Mehmet Sincar 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 (; ; Syriac language, Syriac ܡܠܝܛܝܢܐ Malīṭīná; ; Ancient Greek: Μελιτηνή) is a city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city has been a human settlement for thousands of y ...

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 People from Bismil 1991 deaths Kurdish murder victims Turkish murder victims 20th-century Turkish lawyers People from Diyarbakır People murdered in Turkey Turkish Kurdish politicians Assassinated Kurdish politicians 20th-century Kurdish people Assassinated Turkish politicians Asian politicians assassinated in the 1990s Politicians assassinated in 1991