Turkey’s Kurds shaken by killing of human rights lawyer
Turkey’s Kurds have united in grief over the perplexing killing of celebrated human rights lawyer Tahir Elci, whose loss some take as a sign that peace is further out of reach than ever.
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — The stronghold of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey, Diyarbakir has suffered violence and bloodshed for decades. But rarely have there been moments comparable to the state of deep collective grief and shock that gripped the city after the Nov. 28 killing of Tahir Elci, the head of the local bar association, a greatly respected human rights lawyer and an influential voice of moderation in the Kurdish community.
In cloudy, gray weather that only punctuated the gloom, an estimated 100,000 people took to the streets Nov. 29 to bid farewell to Elci in a long march from the morgue to his final resting place. Anger and grief mixed on the faces of mourners, most of whom never knew him personally. Everybody, however, was familiar with Elci’s long struggle for rights and the law, unrelenting advocacy of dialogue and peace and bold criticism of both the Turkish state and the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in a three-decade conflict that has claimed some 40,000 lives.
Gunned down in broad daylight in mind-boggling circumstances, Elci’s killing came amid simmering violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast and dealt a fresh blow to hopes for reconciliation and a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Reflecting the sense of despair among Kurds, mourner Murat Yuksel told Al-Monitor, “Whoever extends a hand for peace, they break off their hands.”
Moments before his death, the 49-year-old lawyer had spoken to the press outside a centuries-old mosque in Diyarbakir’s Sur district, the ancient heart of the city, to draw attention to the damage historic sites sustained from clashes in the area, where police have been battling militants of the PKK’s urban wing entrenched in residential neighborhoods.
