Mother questioned for visiting son’s grave

ANKARA

The mother of a revolutionary militant killed in 1973 testified in Ankara on Dec. 26, after being questioned for a ceremony held in his memory.

A symbolic name of the 1968 student movement in Turkey and former leader of the Turkish Workers and Peasants’ Liberation Army (TİKKO), İbrahim Kaypakkaya was commemorated by his grave in the Karakaya village of the central Anatolian province of Çorum on May 18, as is the case every year. Representatives from non-governmental organizations and his mother Şükran Kaypakkaya were also present at the ceremony. The Samsun public prosecutor’s office made a criminal complaint about the 131 people who attended the ceremony. The prosecutor’s indictment claimed that the attendees of the ceremony were “making propaganda for a terrorist organization and praising crime and a criminal.”

Kaypakkaya’s family members were also listed among the suspects. Şükran Kaypakkaya gave her testimony on Dec. 26 in Ankara, where she said she only watered his grave and the flowers around it and did not shout slogans against the state. She also said it was very normal for her to visit her son’s grave.