Our Promise to Akın Will Be Revolution!
May 20th marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Akın Reçber; the Fourth Red Rose (Turkish: Dördüncü Kızıl Gülü) of May Day 1996, who died on May 20, 1996 as a result of the brutal torture he endured in police custody.
The Road to May Day 1996
In Kadıköy Square, major preparations had been made for a new act of defiance on May Day 1996. The 12 September 1980 military coup had launched a massive assault against revolutionaries and the working class, banning May Day celebrations altogether. May Day 1996 would become the first mass May Day demonstration held after years of repression. It would be a May Day showing clearly that, despite the darkness of September 12 military dictatorship, the struggle had continued and grown stronger: through the Spring Actions of 1989, the 1991 march of the Zonguldak miners, the Kurdish people continuing to fill the streets and squares, the resistance built by Istanbul University students through the Student Coordination movement, and the determination of revolutionaries who kept resisting despite executions, forced disappearances, torture, and massacres carried out from the cities to the villages across the country.
May Day 1996, Kadıköy
Those seeking to maintain the darkness hanging over Türkiye in 1996 launched an attack to break the determined forces of more than one hundred thousand revolutionaries flooding into Kadıköy. Kemal Yazıcıoğlu, one of the chief agents of the September 12 military dictatorship and then Istanbul Police Chief, made radio announcements later entered into official records: “Today there will be bloodshed. We’ll show those sons of b******… They will never be able to breathe again…” These statements clearly revealed the intent and premeditation behind the massacre of revolutionaries.
At the very beginning of the demonstration, around seven in the morning, police opened fire after provoking an argument at a police checkpoint where the participants were gathering. Eighteen-year-old Hasan Albayrak and another eighteen-year-old, Dursun Odabaşı, were killed in the attack. Near the end of the demonstration, Levent Yalçın, the father of a child, was also murdered by gunfire from nearby buildings. Following the killing of these three revolutionaries, police detained hundreds of demonstrators in and around the square, both officially and unofficially, taking them into custody to be tortured.
The Fourth Red Rose of May Day 1996: Akın Reçber
Akın Reçber was a young revolutionary from the working class neighbourhood of Şentepe, Ankara. He had come to Istanbul together with other revolutionaries to participate in the mass May Day demonstration. After the demonstration ended, while his comrades collectively returned to Ankara, Akın stayed behind to go to his older brother’s home in Istanbul. He was detained at the bus stop where he was waiting.
For ten days, Akın was subjected to severe torture in police custody. When he was finally released, he said: “I was tortured brutally, but I did not speak.” However, the torture had severely damaged his lungs. After returning to Ankara, doctors failed to diagnose his condition in time, and on May 20, 1996, he died at only eighteen years old.
Despite the brutal torture he endured, Akın Reçber resisted to the end, and for thirty years his courage and determination have continued to live on in our struggle.
We salute the martyrs of May Day 1996; Hasan Albayrak, Dursun Odabaşı, Levent Yalçın, and Akın Reçber, along with all martyrs of the revolution.
Their Memory Will Live On in Our Struggle!
Our Promise to Akın Will Be Revolution!
Marxism Now! Editorial Board
First published here by Marksizm Şimdi!
