1980: Erdal Eren, leftist student
December 13th, 2013 Headsman
On this date in 1980, 17-year-old Turkish student radical Erdal Eren was hanged as a terrorist by the military regime.
Eren (Turkish Wikipedia link; most other links here are also in Turkish) was one of about 50 people executed following the military coup of September 12, 1980.
After a decade of bloody left-right civil strife, the Turkish generals toppled the civilian government on that date. Hundreds of thousands of arrests with rampant torture marked the period, but it did quell the endemic street fighting and terrorism of the 1970s.
Erdal Eren was actually arrested during the chaotic pre-coup period. February 1980 student protests after the murder of Sinan Suner, an activist of the communist Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Association, turned into a melee that resulted in an officer shot dead under confused circumstances. Eren was among 24 students rounded up.
Despite his youth, Eren was sentenced to die in a March 19 trial — but his appeals had legs until the post-coup military junta abruptly sent him to the gallows on December 13.
Eren went to his death with a brave step, gamely writing his family that he had witnessed so much torture in prison that death was a relief and not a terror.
He’s very warmly remembered today. A number of cultural artifacts pay tribute to the young martyr, including two different songs (“Two Children”, “Seventeen”) by Teoman, a relative of Erdal Eren’s.
On this day..
- 1669: Susanna One-Ear - 2019
- 1856: Agesilao Milano, near-assassin - 2018
- 2009: One stoned and one shot by Islamic militants in Somalia - 2017
- 1943: The Massacre of Kalavryta - 2016
- Feast Day of St. Lucy - 2015
- 1949: John Wilson and Benjamin Roberts, Syd Dernley's first(s) - 2014
- 1889: John Gilman, tetchy landlord - 2012
- 1861: William Johnson, impulse deserter - 2011
- 1828: Manuel Dorrego, Governor of Buenos Aires - 2010
- 1532: Solomon Molcho - 2009
- 1945: The Belsen war criminals - 2008
- 2006: Angel Diaz - 2007
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Activists,Capital Punishment,Children,Crime,Cycle of Violence,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,History,Martyrs,Murder,Popular Culture,Torture,Turkey,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1980, 1980s, cold war, communists, coup d'etat, december 13, erdal eren
Erdal Eren – the awesome man!