Kemal Pir

Kemal Pir, also known as Laz Kemal (1952 in Güzeloluk, Gümüşhane Province – 7 September 1982 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) was a Turkish Marxist–Leninist revolutionary and one of the ethnically Turkish founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party.[1]

Kemal Pir
Born1952 (1952)
Güzeloluk, Gümüşhane Province, Turkey
DiedSeptember 7, 1982(1982-09-07) (aged 29–30)
Diyarbakır, Diyarbakır Province, Turkey
Cause of deathHunger strike
Other namesLaz Kemal
Alma materAnkara University
Political partyKurdistan Workers' Party

In the early 1970s he studied at Faculty of Literature of Hacettepe University. Influenced by the revolutionary movement led by Abdullah Öcalan, he left the university.[2]

In 1972, living together with Haki Karer in the same house, they received Öcalan after he was released from Mamak prison.[3] At the foundation meeting of the PKK in November 1978, he was elected a member of the central committee.

He was arrested in Batman in 1979 and imprisoned in the Diyarbakir Prison.[2] During his trial he declared that the PKK would begin a peoples revolt when the time was right.[4] While on hunger strike in prison, he was asked by the head of prison "Don't you love life, Kemal?" and famously answered: "We love life so much we are prepared to die for it."[5] He died due to a hunger strike in 1982.[3]

His nephew Ziya Pir is a politician of the HDP[6]

References
  1. Eray Çaylı (2015). "Diyarbakır's "witness sites" and discourses". In Zeynep Gambetti; Joost Jongerden (eds.). The Kurdish Issue in Turkey: A Spatial Perspective. Routledge. p. 84. ISBN 978-1-138-82415-7.
  2. Orhan, Mehmet (2016). Political Violence and Kurds in Turkey: Fragmentations, Mobilizations, Participations & Repertoires. Routledge. p. 113. ISBN 9781317420439.
  3. Jongerden, Joost (2012). "The Kurdistan Workers Party and a New Left in Turkey: Analysis of the revolutionary movement in Turkey through the PKK's memorial text on Haki Karer". edepot.wur.nl. pp. 8–9. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  4. Casier, Marlies; Jongerden, Joost (13 September 2010). Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue. Routledge. p. 131. ISBN 9781136938672.
  5. Ali Kemal Özcan (2006). Turkey's Kurds: A Theoretical Analysis of the PKK and Abdullah Ocalan. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-36687-9.
  6. Topçu, Özlem (18 June 2015). "Türkei-Wahl: Ein Deutscher gegen Erdoğan". Die Zeit (in German). ISSN 0044-2070. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
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