Abdülmelik Fırat (1934, Hınıs – 29 September 2009,

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

) was a prominent Turkish- Kurdish politician. He was the grandson of Sheikh Said, leader of the 1925 Sheikh Said rebellion.

Early life and education

His grandfather Sheikh Said was a Sheikh of the

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

Naqshbandi Naqshbandi (Persian: نقشبندیه) is a major Sufi order within Sunni Islam, named after its 14th-century founder, Baha' al-Din Naqshband. Practitioners, known as Naqshbandis, trace their spiritual lineage (silsila) directly to the Prophet ...

order, which had great influence in the Kurdish population in Turkey. Following the defeat of the rebellion led by Sheikh Said and the subsequent execution of him, his surviving relatives were exiled. Several returned in 1929, when the law allowed it. He was born in 1934 in Erzurum and attended school in Diyarbakir.

Career

Fırat joined the Democrat Party (DP), and was elected to parliament in 1957. He was imprisoned after the 1960 Turkish coup d'état and was sentenced to death in the Yassıada trials, later commuted to imprisonment. Today's Zaman, 30 September 2009
Prominent Kurdish politician Abdulmelik Fırat dies in Ankara
Fırat re-joined politics in 1991 with the True Path Party, and represented it in the

Grand National Assembly of Turkey The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ( ), usually referred to simply as the GNAT or TBMM, also referred to as , in Turkish, is the Unicameralism, unicameral Turkey, Turkish legislature. It is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by ...

, but left the party in disagreement over its policies towards the Kurds. He remained in the assembly as an independent, losing his seat in the 1995 general elections. For some time, he held sympathies for the

People's Democracy Party People's Democracy Party (, HADEP) was a Kurdish political party in Turkey. Murat Bozlak founded the party on 11 May 1994. The party disbanded in 2003. History Bozlak's first chairmanship Party founder and attorney Murat Bozlak was the part ...

(HADEP) before in 2001 he established the

Rights and Freedoms Party The Rights and Freedoms Party (, , abbreviated HAK-PAR) is a Kurdish nationalism, Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. Advocating federalism as a means of increasing Kurdish autonomy in the south-east of the country, the party split fr ...

(, HAK-PAR) 2001 in competition of it. He retired from politics on health grounds in 2006. He died in September 2009 in a hospital in

, where he was treated for

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

Political positions

Despite being a harsh critic of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...

(PKK), he was imprisoned for two months for aiding the PKK in 1996. Fırat said the PKK had been set up by the Turkish "

deep state Deep state is a term used for (real or imagined) potential, unauthorized and often secret networks of power operating independently of a State (polity), state's political leadership in pursuit of their own agendas and goals. Although the term ori ...

" and worked closely with the

Turkish Gendarmerie The Gendarmerie General Command () is the national gendarmerie force of the Republic of Turkey. It is a service branch of the Turkish Ministry of Interior responsible for the maintenance of the public order in areas that fall outside the jurisdi ...

's JITEM intelligence unit, and that leader

Abdullah Öcalan Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1948 or 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish; Kurdish for "uncle"), is a founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from 1979 to 1998. He ...

had worked with the

National Intelligence Organization loction 39°54'25.0"N 32°39'59.3"E The National Intelligence Organization (), also known by its Turkish language, Turkish initials MIT or MİT, or colloquially as the Organization (), is an intelligence agency of the Turkish government tasked ...

before founding the PKK. In 2008, he also stated the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) was founded by the PKK, and that 80 percent of Kurds do not vote for this party.

Publications

His book ''The Euphrates Flows Sadly'' was the issue of an investigation on separatist propaganda in 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Firat, Abdulmek 1934 births 2009 deaths Democrat Party (Turkey, current) politicians Deputies of Erzurum Democrat Party (Turkey, 1946–1960) politicians Turkish prisoners sentenced to death Prisoners sentenced to death by Turkey Rights and Freedoms Party politicians Turkish Kurdish politicians