Verdict no suprise, says poet victim's daughter


ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News-VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

A Turkish court’s decision yesterday to drop the case into the 1993 Sivas massacre due to the statute of limitations is unsurprising, a daughter of one of the victims said while expressing determination to continue pursuing the matter nonetheless.

“There is the judicial process that proceeded lawlessly for 19 years. Some 15,000 people were involved in the [massacre], according to police records, [but] only 160 of them were referred to court. They were all released on various grounds, and a handful of activists are all that is left behind,” prominent Turkish poet Metin Altıok’s daughter, Zeynep Altıok, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Metin Altıok struggled for weeks with severe burns before finally succumbing to his injuries, according to Zeynep Altıok who added she was 23 when she lost her father.

“[We] could carry the case all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights, but I am not so enthusiastic about complaining to Europe about my country. I [prefer] the case be resolved here,” she said. Zeynep Altıok also said she had never visited Sivas where the incident took place and would only go if a “Museum of Disgrace” were to be established there in place of the hotel burnt down. “The state [merely] watched as this eight-hour long massacre [unfolded]; firefighters did not intervene, and the police and the army failed to fulfill their duties,” she said.

New massacres could take place in Turkey at any moment, said Zeynep Altıok, noting the racist slogans shouted during the controversial Khojaly Massacre demonstration on Feb. 26 in Istanbul and the recent marking of Alevi homes in the eastern province of Adıyaman.