​​​​​​​July 14th Resistance is still ongoing in prisons and mountains

After the military coup d'état led by Kan'an Evrin in Turkey on September 12, 1980, life in Northern Kurdistan and all of Turkey turned into a large hell.

In the face of injustice and oppression that exacerbated with the fascist September coup d'état, the Kurdish people chose resistance.

At that time, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was waging a tireless struggle in all the cities of Northern Kurdistan. In other words, it can be said that the freedom movement managed to build and reinforce the resistance approach in all fields against oppression and persecution of the fascist Turkish state.

One of the most important fields in which resistance reached its climax, turned into an approach to struggle and left a historical legacy for resistance was Amed city prison.

After the fascist September coup d'état, Turkish fascism arrested dozens of leaders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and imprisoned them. The Turkish state used to seek to silence the voice of the freedom movement and obliterate the approach of resistance by imprisoning the avant-garde leaders.

However, the avant-garde strugglers such as Mazlum Dogan and his comrades thwarted the Turkish fascism's plans with will and courage. On March 21, 1982, Mazloum Dogan, Member of the Central Committee of the Kurdistan Workers' Party ignited the "resistance is life" spark.

The Great Resistance: Hunger Strike to Death

After the resistance of Mazloum Dogan for several months, Strugglers Mohamed Khairy Dormush, Kemal Bir, Akef Yilmaz and Ali Chichek raised the flag of freedom, and continued resistance.

On July 14, 1982, Member of the Central Committee of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Mohamed Khairy Dormush, spoke before the Turkish State Security Court in Amed about the torture they were subjected to. On the same day, Mohamed Khairy Dormush raised the slogan "We have prevailed… We will prevail" and announced to his comrades that they would start a hunger strike to death. After the strike was announced, Kemal Bir, Akef Yilmaz and Ali Chichek also joined the hunger strike until death.

With the hunger strike announcement, the pioneering PKK cadres turned the prison into a major arena of resistance against the Turkish state fascism and the regime of Kan'an Evrin. The vanguard cadres were subjected to brutal torture methods in an attempt to force them to abandon the PKK.

After the prison resistance triumphed, resistance turned into a source of inspiration for the Kurdish people in the march to demand legitimate rights and confront the Turkish state fascism. Accordingly, the Turkish state stepped up its efforts to extinguish the flame of resistance.

On the 55^th day of the July 14^th Resistance, the resistance leader Mohamed Khairy Dormush martyred. Before his martyrdom, he used his famous saying when he asked to write on his tombstone the phrase "I owe to my people."

On the 7^th of September 1982, Struggler Kemal Bir joined the convoy of martyrs, and he also released his famous saying when he said, "Apo, whom I know, I trust in him and he is capable of innovation even in the most difficult circumstances."

On the 15^th of September 1982, Struggler Akef Yilmaz joined his martyred comrades Kemal Bir and Mohamed Khairy Dormush. The last martyr of resistance was young Struggler Ali Chichek who joined the July 14^th martyrs on the 17^th of September.

Due to the sacrifices made by the first leaders of the PKK, the PKK movement did not end and was not eliminated; on the contrary, the movement became more powerful. Those who brought the July 14^th Resistance to its climax sacrificed their lives and souls in order to achieve a better future for Kurdish children. This fact was embodied in Martyr Kemal Bir saying, "We love life so much that we can sacrifice our lives for it."

Mohamed Khairy Dormush, one of the pioneers of the July 14^th Resistance in Amed prison said regarding the hunger strike decision, "This resistance must break the prison walls and reach the outside."

Ocalan: July 14^th was a great step

On the importance of the July 14^th Resistance, Leader Abdullah Ocalan says, "July 14^th was really a great and right step and leap. So what was it? In the place where death is required, a person must sacrifice themselves and must make this decision. Whatever the matter is, it is difficult for a person to sacrifice. That is what they did.

In conjunction with the 39^th anniversary of the July 14^th Resistance, the fascism of the Justice and Development Party and the Nationalist Movement Party tightened the isolation imposed on Leader Abdullah Ocalan in Imrali prison, in an effort to isolate the leader from people, but the July 14^th Resistance in 1982 began with 4 of the pioneering cadres, and it continues today through the resistance of thousands of PKK cadres.

Thousands follow in the four heroes' footsteps

On November 21, 2020, thousands of PKK cadres announced the launch of an open hunger strike campaign in the prisons of the Turkish state to demand an end to the isolation imposed on Leader Abdullah Ocalan, and an end to human rights violations against political prisoners, as well as to protest against the Turkish state's policies against the Kurdish people.

In the mountains of Avashin, Metina and Zap, and before that in Gara and Heftanin, the companions of Martyrs Kemal Bir, Mohamed Khairi Dormush, Akef Yilmaz and Ali Chichek registered the epics of resistance and heroism against the genocidal attacks pursued by the Turkish state.

The spirit of the July 14^th Resistance turned into a source of inspiration for all Kurdish people and freedom strugglers in order to achieve a free and dignified life. The July 14^th Resistance was a message to the Kurdish people that the time of surrender, submission and despair is over, and it is time to launch a new era of resistance in Kurdistan.

D.H

ANHA