Kemal Pir, also known as Laz Kemal (1952 in

Güzeloluk Güzeloluk (former Yağda-Koyuncu) is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Erdemli, Mersin Province, Turkey. Its population is 702 (2022). It is situated in the high plateau of the Taurus Mountains. In summer, it is also a yayla ...

Gümüşhane Province Gümüşhane Province ( tr, Gümüşhane ili ) is a province in northern Turkey, bordering Bayburt to the east, Trabzon to the north, Giresun and Erzincan to the west. It covers an area of 6,575 km2 and has a population of 129,618 in 2010 ...

– 7 September 1982 in

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...

, Turkey) was a Turkish Marxist–Leninist revolutionary and one of the ethnically Turkish founders of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of sou ...

. In the early 1970s he studied at Faculty of Literature of

Hacettepe University Hacettepe University is a leading state university in Ankara, Turkey. It was established on 8 July 1967. It is ranked first among the Turkish universities by URAP in 2021. The university has two main campuses. The first campus is in the old t ...

. Influenced by the revolutionary movement led by

Abdullah Öcalan Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish and Kurdish for "uncle"), is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from ...

, he left the university. In 1972, living together with

Haki Karer Haki Karer (1950, Ulubey – 1977, Gaziantep) was a Turkish leftist activist and is a central figure in the memory of the PKK. Education After finishing high school he went to Ankara to study physics at the University of Ankara but left the unive ...

in the same house, they received Öcalan after he was released from Mamak prison. At the foundation meeting of the PKK in November 1978, he was elected a member of the central committee. He was arrested in Batman in 1979 and imprisoned in the Diyarbakir Prison. During his trial he declared that the PKK would begin a peoples revolt when the time was right. While on hunger strike in prison, he was asked by the head of prison "Don't you love life, Kemal?" and famously answered: "We love life so much we are prepared to die for it." He died due to a hunger strike in 1982. His nephew

Ziya Pir Ziya Pir (born 1970 in Torul, Gümüşhane Province, Turkey) is a Turkish and German entrepreneur and politician of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Early life and education Born in Turkey, Pir mostly grew up in Western Germany. Affilia ...

is a politician of the HDP

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pir, Kemal 1952 births People from Torul 1982 deaths Members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party Apoists Prisoners who died in Turkish detention People who died on hunger strike Turkish people who died in prison custody