DEVRİMCİ HALK KURTULUŞ CEPHESİ
Date: August 13, 2004 | Statement: 339
Condolences to the people of Turkey,
Congratulations to the collaborators and the silent accomplices:
The 117th death in the F-Type prisons!
The Death Fast fighter Selami Kurnaz has become a martyr
Our comrade Selami Kurnaz, who was in the 10th Death Fast team named after Gultekin Koc, became immortal as a hero in his hunger march on August 12th, under the motto “Either death or victory”.
Our comrade started his Death Fast in the isolation cells of the F-Type prison at Tekirdag.
Five months ago he was transferred to Tekirdag State Hospital. For five months he was confronted with the threat of being force fed. The doctors of the Mengele type have always been around. Since March 30, when Umit Gunger burned himself in the same hospital to prevent forced medical intervention, he was prohibited things like matches or lighters. It was an isolation under isolation. But they didn’t succeed in breaking the will of the Death Fast fighter Selami Kurnaz. Our 40-year old comrade Selami Kurnaz, who has been in the revolutionary struggle since his 17th year, has become the 117th martyr. His demand was to end prison isolation.
The Islamists claim to be against tyranny. That’s the 20th death under their government!
The crime file of the AKP government is growing.
Under severe censorship 20 people lost their lives in 21 months, after it came to power.
This government came to power with promises like “freedom of opinion and belief”. But especially they tried to change convictions and beliefs by force. This resulted in brutal murders.
Those, who support the AKP for its Islamist convictions, are quite late in questioning their identity and whom they are serving. With every passing day, all supporters of the AKP are becoming their accomplices.
No Islamist can claim to serve justice. With the murder of people like Selami Kurnaz they are simply serving US imperialism. Those who apply the isolation politics of the USA and EU against us, cannot have any belief. For the collaborators of the USA, religion is only used as an instrument.
Each time that they say Allah, it is connected with hypocrisy. The only god that they know is money and the US dollar. They become rich by killing the revolutionaries and the people. They become rich by carrying out the politics of the EU and USA. Their holy shrine is therefore none other than Washington. They do not listen to Islam but to the USA.
Could somebody who respects Islam participate in the occupation of Iraq? Would they continue with the tyranny in the F-Type prisons? Would they force the people to misery by carrying out IMF politics? The sympathisers and supporters of the AKP shouldn’t join the massacre in the name of Islam!
And as for the silent, hypocritical left, who claim to be against oppression: just you continue to be silent!
To those circles in our country, who call themselves democrats, socialists, communists and revoutionaries, but remain silent;
Each time when there is silence over such a tyranny and heroic struggle, it is added to the history of the left as a shameful blot. All revolutionaries, leftists, socialists, communists should be ashamed about this silence! If there isn’t the smallest feeling of shame, they aren’t worthy to carry the label of left-wing.
Those who remain silent against tyranny and use this label are hypocrites.
Just say, that this is not on your agenda, but do not even do anything on your other agenda.
Just say, that there should be found other forms of struggle, but do not even move your little finger.
Speak about the “sacredness of life”, while you do not think about anything else but your comfortable petit-bourgeois life. This sarcastic game, this theatre is appropriate to the fake left.
Continue to be indifferent, because we didn’t ask you, and strengthen cooperation with the oligarchy.
Continue until your socialist, communist masks fall away and we can see your real faces.
We won’t capitulate to the isolation of US and EU imperialism and the AKP!
The isolation politics of the F-Type cells, the ban on the right to resist and the people’s hope for liberation, are part of a deliberate policy.
We won’t give up our beliefs and the struggle for independence, democracy and socialism. To give up the hope for revolution and socialism means leveing the people helpless. We won’t allow this. The revolutionary movement in Turkey has deep roots.
It is strongly tied to the people.
The revolutionary movement has had to confront various attacks. We will also smash this encirclement and isolation. Our great resistance in the prisons has almost entered its fourth year. When we said after the December 12 massacre (in 2000), that “this resistance will continue, if it takes three months or one year”, some people found it to be exaggerated . But they were punished by history.
Even if we continue to die in the isolation cells of the F-Type prisons, we’ll never surrender to tyranny. We will never give up our beliefs and our ideals which lead our people to liberation.
These facts should be recognised.
Our people; young or old, man or woman, Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, Laz nationality, workers, farmers, students. This is the biography of the 117th martyr in the Death Fast, Selami Kurnaz:
Our comrade Selami Kurnaz was born on February 11, 1964 in Arsin/Trabzon (Black Sea region). He was Laz.
He was acquainted with revolutionary ideology at the age of 14, before the military coup of September 12, 1980.
Directly after 1980 he joined the organised struggle of Devrimci Yol. Because Devrimci Yol was abolished after the military coup, Selami remained unorganised. In this period he stayed in prison for a short while. But nothing could stop him from practising his revolutionary ideals. In the beginning of the 1990s he carried out activities in the People’s House in Trabzon and tried to stay loyal to his ideals. But there was some theoretical confusion in his mind.
In these years he went to Istanbul and became acquainted with members of Devrimci Sol. This removed his theoretical confusion. He belonged anyhow to the Party-Front (THKP-C, People’s Liberation Party-Front of Turkey). The theoretical and practical heritage of the Party-Front was taken over by Devrimci Sol. And this was exactly the reason why Selami Kurnaz opted for Devrimci Sol. He participated in activities in the local area. After he worked in the Mucadele (“Struggle” revolutionary magazine) office in Trabzon, he became a founding member of Ozgur-Der (“Free Association”) and started to work there.
He was imprisoned in July 1993. He didn’t feel any doubt after a short imprisonment. He also experienced brief periods of imprisonment in 1995 and 2000, but this didn’t change anything in his determination for the struggle. He was subjected to torture several times. But he couldn’t be intimidated. In 1994 he took up responsibilities in the local area.
In June 2001 he was imprisoned again. He was put in the F-Type prison. This was to be his last imprisonment. He always felt he was a “free prisoner”. He was one of the volunteers who took over the flag from his comrades, a flag that has been carried since October 20, 2000.
As a fighter of the Gultekin Koc Death Fast team, he carried the flag for 10 months.
He became immortal as one of the heroes in our great resistance.
