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Outlawed PKK after imams who advocate nonviolence
The organization is also responsible for the death of İmam Aziz Tan late last month in Hakkari. Although the PKK has not claimed responsibility for the killing of Tan, fearing a backlash from the public, Hakkari Governor Muammer Türker said the assailants were identified as PKK members.
Hakkari police also revealed that Tan had received death threats from the terrorist organization for some time before he was shot. The Aksiyon weekly reported on a PKK member’s statement to police in its latest issue, according to which a terrorist codenamed Dilşat killed Tan because the imam was working against the PKK.
Recalling that the PKK attempted to play on religious segments with frequent attacks on religious figures during the 1990s, Professor Yasin Aktay from Selçuk University said the PKK is facing a legitimacy problem ahead of the Sept. 12 constitutional referendum. Aktay, who also heads the Ankara-based think tank the Institute of Strategic Thinking (SDE), says PKK nationalism sees the pro-unity message of religion as its biggest threat. “The terrorist organization which has tried to include religious figures in its activities for 15 years, reached its aim through Hizbullah. If the attacks against men of religion begin again after a long break, suspicions will arise that there are plans to undermine the peaceful atmosphere and to trigger instability in the region,” Aktay said.
Aktay stressed that the religious approach of locals would lead to questioning the PKK and make it look illegitimate in an environment of freedom of thought.
Noting that religion is the biggest threat against the nationalism pushed by the PKK in the region, Aktay said the organization’s timing in these attacks may come to undermine the peaceful atmosphere in the region and increase tension. “Tension is the PKK’s raison d’être. The steps taken so far to ensure peace also called into question the existence of the organization. The fact that men of religion have raised their voices and question the PKK has led to increased death threats against them. The PKK knows well that it will lose its legitimacy if religious sentiments are stirred in the region, since the organization is a Marxist one. In fact, the PKK is able to survive by keeping an atmosphere of violence alive,” he explains.
Aktay stresses that the PKK knows it lacks any argument to justify its existence as hope for peace is emerging, adding that the organization fears losing all sympathy for it in the eyes of locals.
İmams Tan and Ezher are not the first imams to be killed by the PKK. The organization has killed more than 42 imams in Bitlis, Mardin, Diyarbakır, Bingöl, Şırnak, Batman and Siirt since it took up arms in 1984. The attacks on imams increased significantly between 1992 and 1996.
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