Police files to reveal dark times in Turkish history
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
Turkish novelist Sabahattin Ali was killed at the Bulgarian border in 1948. Hürriyet photo
Secret Turkish police files dating from before 1963 providing priceless information on some of the darkest periods of the early Republic are to be revealed to the public, daily Akşam has reported.The files include documents about Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet, Turkish novelist Sabahattin Ali, as well as files about the violent massacre against Alevi rebels in the eastern province of Tunceli (formerly known as Dersim) that occurred between 1936 and 1939 and resulted in the deaths of at least 13,800 people.
Millions of documents
The Turkish General Police Directorate has handed over more than 500,000 files consisting of 250 million documents, including their digital copies, to the State Archives General Directorate.
The order to release the files to the public was recently given by Turkish General Police Director Mehmet Kılıçlar.
According to the documents about the massacre in Dersim (Tunceli), the police reported that “a group in Dersim has held a religious ceremony in the Armenian language.”
The documents also include details regarding Kurdish rebellions in contemporary Turkish history, such as the 1925 Kurdish rebellion led by Kurdish religious leader Şeyh Sait.
