Call to solve the mass murder of the 35 Alevis who died in the massacre at Sivas and bring at least those perpetrators living in Germany to justice!

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Alevi massacre in the Turkish city of Sivas, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is calling for an independent investigation into the crime, the sentencing of the perpetrators and an end to the ongoing oppression of this religious community in Turkey. 37 people died in the Madimak Hotel in the Central Anatolian city of Sivas on 2 July 1993, when an angry Islamic mob set fire to the building - 35 victims were Alevis or of Alevi descent, two were hotel employees. Many of the perpetrators are still at large, nine of them are now living in Germany and one was given German citizenship in May 2013.

“The suspects living in this country have to be brought before a German court,” said Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East expert, on Monday in Göttingen, “because crimes of that nature do not fall under the statute of limitations. It is high time the whole truth were brought to light, in order to obtain justice for the victims and their relatives.”

Alevis staged protests and demonstrations in many German cities at the weekend to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sivas massacre, in which Alevi authors, artists and intellectuals, who had assembled in the Madimak Hotel for an Alevi cultural/religious ceremony, became the victims of a violent mob that had formed on Hükümet Square after the Friday’s prayer. The angry demonstrators called for the Governor, who supported the Alevi, to step down and then proceeded to the hotel chanting: “Sivas will be the grave of the infidels. We want Scharia! Islam means freedom.” About 15,000 Islamic fundamentalists surrounded the building, threw stones at it, smashed windows and set cars alight. Finally, they set fire to the hotel, barricading the exits and blocking the path of the fire brigade, which arrived late. The people inside the building died in full view of the television cameras.

According to official records, 13 per cent of the Muslims living in Germany are Alevi. They have been the victims of persecution and discrimination for decades in Turkey. Until a few years ago, members of this religious community repeatedly suffered pogroms, and about 70,000 members died in genocidal massacres in the region of Dersim in 1938 at the hands of Sunni Muslims, who regard the Alevi as heretics.