Kahramanmaraş Massacre

The Maraş massacre (Turkish: Maraş katliamı) was the massacre of more than one hundred Alevi civilians in the city of Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, in December 1978 by the neo-fascist Grey Wolves. and religious conservative community. The tensions were initially ignited by a noise bomb throwing into a movie theater frequently visited by extreme Turkish nationalists. The incident is best remembered for the subsequent campaign of violence directed against left-wingers, mostly Alevis, although some left-wing Sunnis and Kurds were also targeted. Although some 500 perpetrators of the incident were indicted later on, investigation was kept classified by the government. Real provocateurs setting the stage for the incident were never identified.

The incident in Kahramanmaraş lasted from 19 to 26 December 1978. It started with a bomb thrown into a cinema attended mostly by right-wingers. Rumors spread that left-wingers had thrown the bomb. The next day, a bomb was thrown into a coffee-shop frequently visited by left-wingers, In the evening of 21 December 1978 the teachers Hacı Çolak and Mustafa Yüzbaşıoğlu were killed on their way home. They were known as left-wingers. While a crowd of some 5,000 people prepared for the funeral, right-wing groups stirred up emotions saying that "the communists are going to bomb the mosque, and will massacre our Muslim brothers".

On 23 December 1978, the incidents turned into a pogrom: crowds stormed the quarters where Alevis were living, destroying houses and shops. Many offices including that of Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK), Teachers' Association of Turkey (TÖB-Der), Association of Police Officers (Pol-Der) and Republican People's Party (Turkey) (CHP) were destroyed. During the incidents, over 100 people were killed, more than 200 houses and approximately 100 shops were destroyed. The figures on casualties vary slightly. The Independent Communication Network Bianet and the platform Turkish Information claim that 111 people were killed, while the daily Zaman puts the death toll at 105. On 26 December 1978, martial law was announced in İstanbul, Ankara, Adana, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep, Elazığ, Bingöl, Erzurum, Erzincan, Kars, Malatya, Sivas and Urfa.