Facing the Dersim Genocide
4 May 2022
Today marks the 85th anniversary of the Dersim genocide (tertele). We commemorate those who lost their lives in the genocide.
Military operations had been launched into Dersim upon the cabinet decision of 4 May 1937 delivered within the scope of Law No. 2884 on Tunceli of 25 December 1935. Tens of thousands of Kurds/Alevis had been killed during these operations. These military operations had resumed during 1938 as well and the Dersim area had been depopulated to a large extent with the massacre along with enforced displacement (exile).
We, as human rights defenders, characterize these massacres committed in Dersim in 1937-1938 as genocide as it is defined in Article 76 of the Turkish Penal Code (TPC). People of Dersim, too, continue to characterize them as “tertele.”
İHD upholds that this historic tragedy is a subject matter for facing the past in terms of human rights law and can only be addressed within this framework. To provide for facing the past and reveal all truth require a strong political will.
We had indicated in our statement of 25 November 2011 that the fact that the then prime minister Erdoğan used the term “massacre” for what had happened in Dersim and apologized on behalf of the state at an AKP provincial leaders convention in 2011 was an important start.
In order for the state to face Dersim, firstly a “Truth Commission for Dersim” should be established under the auspices of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT), the state should recognize the genocide having introduced the necessary legislative regulations in line with the recommendations of this commission after it finalizes its works as well as apologizing and offering restorative justice resolutions.
Further, without waiting for these works to be completed, we also urge the authorities to:
- Reinstate the name Dersim;
- Restore the honors of Seyit Rıza and his friends who had been executed during the Dersim genocide, to reveal the whereabouts of their graves and to duly exhume other mass graves;
- Reveal the fates of surviving girls who escaped death during the military operations and enable their reunion with their families;
- Renounce the policy of depopulation of Dersim and to cancel the building of hydroelectric power plants and other dams putting an end to natural and cultural destruction;
- Protect natural and cultural faith centers in Dersim and to enable their transfer to the local representatives of people of Dersim (like the Dersim Municipality).
Human Rights Association