Huseyin Cevahir – biography
Date of martyrdom: June 1, 1971.
Place of martyrdom: Maltepe district, Istanbul
Date of birth: 1950
Place of birth: village of Mohindu (Darkent), Mazgirt district, Dersim province
Place of the grave: Şöbek-Yeldeğen, Mazgirt district, Dersim province
Hüseyin Cevahir is the son of a Kurdish peasant family from the Alevi confession. He is one of the leaders of the People’s Liberation Party-Front of Turkey (in Turkish; Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Partisi-Cephesi, or THKP-C). On June 1, 1971, Hüseyin and his comrade Mahir Çayan were surrounded in an apartment in the Maltepe district of Istanbul. He has martyred, creating one of the brightest examples of resistance in the conditions of a total blockade.
Mahir, Huseyin, and Ulaş[1] have been together at almost every moment in the history of THKP-C. All three martyred, leaving immortal feats behind, each an example to those who continued to walk on their road. At the same time, the three together carry out numerous actions.
Cevahir is one of the THKP-C cadres from the Faculty of Political Science of Ankara University (in Turkish Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi-AÜ SBF). Initially, he was accepted to study at the Medical Faculty of Istanbul University, but the Faculty of Political Science was more attractive to him. After some time he was transferred to the Faculty of Political Science. At that time he was already a member of the Workers’ Party of Turkey-WPT (in Turkish; Türkiye İşçi Partisi-TİP). He has the strong abilities of a researcher. It was these abilities that made him one of the active participants in the ideological struggle against the TİP.
Cevahir is one of the first revolutionary cadres to take on the burden of the anti-fascist struggle in the Faculty of Political Science. Over time, the events in these years and the development of the struggle led to the foundation of THKP-C. During this period, at a meeting held in December 1970 at a home in the Küçükesat district of Ankara, he was elected as a member of the 11-member Interim General Committee (in Turkish; Geçici Genel Komite) of THKP-C. After some time, when this interim committee became the permanent structure, Hüseyin Cevahir rejoined to this committee in the organizational structure of the THKP-C. At the first meeting of the General Committee, at which the tasks and responsibilities were distributed between the cadres, Hüsyein Cevahir was elected responsible for the organizational work in Kurdistan.
But Cevahir was where the party needed him. Together with Sinan Kazım Özüdoğru, Hudai Arıkan and Sebahattin Kurt, he frequently visits the Black Sea region of Turkey. THKP-C leaders are not leaders standing with their arms crossed at the table. For this reason, they have always been directly involved in the organization of the armed struggle. Cevahir also took part in the first THKP-C armed actions in Ankara. In February 1971, he arrived in Istanbul with Ulaş Bardakçı and several other comrades to prepare for the actions in the city. Together with Mahir Çayan and Ulaş Bardakçı, Hüseyin took part in the May 17, 1971 kidnapping operation of the then Consulate General of Israel in Istanbul, Ephraim Elrom. [2]
In the face of severe repression and constant persecution by the fascist military junta which came to power after the coup, on March 12 1971, they do not even think of withdrawing, instead, they think about how to organize the struggle. That is why they put their ideas into practice. The aftermath of the action against Elrom led them to that home in Maltepe that they would turn into a stronghold of resistance.
The date was June 1, 1971. The place was Istanbul, Maltepe, and Cevahir would be viciously killed. But the oligarchy would meet many more times with fighters like Cevahir, many more times it would face fortresses like Maltepe.
Because his feat and the line of the Party-Front would remain a legacy for future generations.
Footnotes:
1-Refers to Ulaş Bardakçı, one of the leaders of THKP-C and a close comrade of Hüseyin Cevahir and Mahir Çayan. A translation of the biographies of Mahir and Ulaş are available from the links below:
https://newsolution.fi/mahir-cayan-biography/
https://newsolution.fi/ulas-bardakci/
2-More about this action and events after it, you can read in this brochure in English language.
https://newsolution.fi/the-folk-song-of-islander/
Source: http://ozgurluk.info/sehitlerimiz/sehitler-html/Huseyin%20Cevahir-ozgecmis.htm
