The period between 1920 and 1927, when the İstiklal Courts (so-called Independence Courts) were mainly committing acts brutality by persecuting the people in that era, is beyond evil. The knife was sharp and the people wielding the knife were extremely brutal.
İskilipli Atif Hoca, a victim who has become a symbol of these İstiklal Courts, was executed 86 years ago around this time. His grave was identified 82 years ago after efforts by former Hatay deputy Mehmet Silay because the whereabouts of Hoca’s grave were kept confidential like many others. The relatives could not even bear to mention the names of the people who were executed as they were overcome with emotion. Most of them had to leave their villages and towns and withdraw to isolation and seclusion.
Hoca was a religious cleric who wrote on the current affairs of the time together with Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Mehmet Akif, Ahıskal Ali Haydar, Eşref Edip and Ali Şükrü. Despite the fact that he wrote a book in which he criticized attempts at Westernization 18 years before the introduction of the law on wearing a hat, he was prosecuted for having violated that law by writing the book. His case was concluded in just four days and shortly after the conclusion of the case, Hoca, along with Ali Rıza Efendi, former mufti of Babaeski, was executed on Feb. 4, 1926, before the former parliament building.
In the introduction section of a book by Necip Fazil Kısakürek, “Son Devrin Mazlumları” (The victims in the recent history), which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referred to when he spoke about the Dersim incidents, the author says: “This book frames a subject matter on what should be expected and added to the stories of great victims throughout history. It aims to focus on what has been taken away from us through the disappearance of those who were victimized because of their fight for their ideals and faiths.”
Kısakürek, relying on a courageous discourse and narrative, depicts the stories of Sultan Abdulhamid, Sheik Said, Hoca, Esad Erbili, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and the victims of Dersim massacre by using eyewitness accounts. Kısakürek, who was of the opinion that recent events should be added to the past and they should be considered together, also makes a recommendation for future generations by saying that they should do the same and add similar accounts to what has been told and narrated. I think that Turkey is going through such a process, which is honoring this wish of Kısakürek. The victimized sons of the republican regime are being given their prestige and honor back.
Executioner Cellat Kara Ali, who was assigned to perform the executions, in an interview that was published in Tanin paper, said that he “executed 6,128 people in Ankara.” There are distinct time periods in the history of this court. The basis of the first period was the bill on treason introduced on April 29, 1920. The goal of this bill was to prevent males from evading military service. The courts remained in operation between July 1921 and October 1923, focusing on sensitive cases including those where Çerkes Ethem, a Turkish militia leader of Circassian origin, was prosecuted, where the assassination attempt against Atatürk was reviewed and communist institutions were prosecuted. Some 54,000 people were tried by these courts; 1,054 of these people were executed whereas 43,000 were sent into exile or jailed.
The second period of the İstiklal Courts, which were back in business by the end of 1923, ended in 1927. The courts ruled for the execution of Sheik Said and 46 of his supporters in Diyarbakır on June 29, 1925. In the aftermath, courts were set up in İstanbul and Ankara to prosecute those who criticized the practices of the republican era regime. The courts turned into machinery of brutality and repression by which thousands of innocent people were unjustly executed. Ali Çetinkaya, aka Kel Ali, was the chair of the Ankara martial courts, the prosecutor was Necip Ali Küçüka and Kılıç Ali was a member of the panel of judges. These three Alis have become symbols of unfair trials and brutal practices over time. The most distinct feature of these courts was that the defendants did not have the right to file an appeal. Most of the suspects tried at the court had been placed under arrest the same day and executed within a short period of time. The official records of the Ankara Istiklal Court show that Cetinkaya issued 2,470 death sentences.
Those brutalities and persecutions cannot be justified by the terms and conditions of the time. In other words, these are not some sorts of mistakes that can be justified or tolerated in times of war or national crisis. The targets were picked deliberately and the mindset embedded by the introduction of these courts has survived up to our time. For this reason, all brutalities concern all of us.
