Adana Archives

Blast hits near police station in southern Turkey

December 28, 2017 by administrator

A photo by Turkish media shows investigators probing the site of a blast in city of Adana.

An explosion has targeted a police station in the southern Turkish city of Adana, causing damage and shattering nearby windows, local media say.

According to the private Dogan news agency, the blast took place at 7:10 p.m. on a street close to the police station in the city’s Seyhan district on Thursday.

The bomb was placed beneath an electrical pole by a person wearing a mask. It shattered nearby windows and was heard in other parts of the city.

Adana Police Chief Selami Yildiz said that the explosion was caused by a “sound bomb” designed to make a loud noise but not cause any casualties.

“We believe it was a home-made bomb, like a sound bomb,” the official Anadolu agency quoted Yildiz as saying. “We are continuing our inspections,” he added

Police teams have launched a major manhunt for the perpetrator.

In recent years, Turkey has suffered a wave of deadly attacks carried out by Kurdish militants or Takfiri Daesh terrorists that have killed hundreds of people.

The 1909 massacres of Armenians in Adana – Hurriyet Daily News “Must Read to Understand Turkish Atrocity”

March 24, 2016 by administrator

_{By William Armstrong – william.armstrong@hdn.com.tr}
‘In the Ruins: The 1909 Massacres of Armenians in Adana’ by Zabel Yessayan (AIWA, $20, 262 pages)
In the spring of 1909, Zabel Yessayan journeyed from Istanbul to Adana, after the massacre of up to 30,000 Armenians around the Mediterranean city. She was part of a group sent by the Armenian Patriarchate, assigned to survey conditions after the killings and provide assistance to orphans and refugees. Born in Istanbul, the 31-year-old Yessayan had also lived in Paris, where she published articles, stories and translations. But her experiences around Adana far exceeded anything she had seen before.
“Among the Ruins” was published on her return to Istanbul in 1911. It is a vivid testimony full of gruesome details, depicting the hellscape that Armenian districts had become and the trauma endured by the locals. “Our race’s veins had been slashed open once again, and our blood, still pulsing with joy over our newfound freedom, had been spilled once again on soil fertilized by our sweat,” she writes.
The massacres occurred in 1909, in the weeks after a countercoup in Istanbul saw Sultan Abdülhamit II returned to power. The sultan’s authority had been seized the previous year by the Young Turks, a cadre of young military officers who pledged to restore the constitution and protect the rights of all Ottoman subjects. The Christian-minority Armenians generally supported the coup against the paranoid sultan, who had inspired earlier pogroms against Ottoman Armenians. When Abdülhamit wrested back control from the Young Turks, he again mobilized popular support by identifying himself with the historically Islamic character of the state, promising to eliminate secular policies and restore the sharia. This precipitated a new wave of anti-Armenian raids in Adana carried out by local Muslims.
“In the Ruins” describes the aftermath of the bloodbath. It is full of purple prose but many of the descriptions are still shocking over 100 years later. “The devastated city stretches outward like a cemetery without end,” Yessayan writes upon arrival in Adana:

Nothing has been spared; all the churches, schools, and dwellings have been reduced to formless piles of charred stone, among which, here and there, the skeletons of buildings jut up. From east to west, from north to south, all the way to the distant limits of the Turkish quarters, an implacable, ferocious hatred has burned and destroyed everything.
The pages are full of visceral descriptions of the traumatized orphans and miserable survivors left behind. Everywhere she goes Yessayan finds locals bearing the physical and mental scars of torture and attempted lynching. At times there is a kind of stunned numbness in the aftermath of a cataclysm: “On their dark-skinned, somber, gloomy faces, you could sometimes read, as in an open book, all the terror of hours that defied description; but at other times, everything clouded over, and then the children were impenetrable. And that was even more unsettling.” Elsewhere the suffering is more clearly on the surface, and it is detailed in unforgettable, haunting passages.
The familiar theme of Armenian survival and resistance against all odds, often invoked today, can be seen in Yessayan’s work even back in 1911. As she writes towards the end: “The voice of my battered, bloody race was singing its imperious refrain in my veins. The enemy’s designs had once again proven fruitless, and I could sense, despite the desperately sad impressions we had gathered as eyewitnesses, that something immortal and indestructible … had eluded the criminals.” Such passages make for melancholy reading in the knowledge of what would happen in Eastern Anatolia six years later.
There are also chilling contemporary echoes. Adana is barely 100 km from the Syrian border, where today a human tragedy continues to unfold with no end in sight. Yessayan paints a pitiful picture of the surviving Armenian children of Adana:

When they saw anyone at all, they shivered like someone in the grip of a fever. In the imaginations of those tender innocents, grown-ups all looked alike. They saw a criminal in every adult male, were deluded by terrifying resemblances, imagined ghastly scenes … Their young minds were deranged, because for days on end they had seen criminals brandishing knives or rifles, eyes burning with a lust for evil, mouths contorted by curses and threats.

It’s hard to read such descriptions without thinking of terrified Syrians displaced on the border today.

106. The facts behind the Adana massacre anniversary #ArmenianGenocide

April 11, 2015 by administrator

Emre Can Dağlıoğlu

BERCAR FENERCİ PHOTO ARCHIVE

1909 Adana Massacre, a rebellion that will shake the fate of the Ottoman next year March 31, the same day Vakası’yl started and days during the wave of violence against the Armenians spread around Adana, had left behind huge losses. 106 years ago this massacre began April 13, from Boğaziçi University Department of History Professor Toksöz’l breeze talked to.

Çukurova enrichment live on agriculture coincides with this period. Port of Mersin, is emerging as an important port in the eastern Mediterranean during this period. The construction of the railway at the end of the 1880 Adana-Mersin, Mersin Port is gaining serious attention and becomes almost Beyrut’l the race. Therefore, many expanding trade network. 1905 in Adana is experiencing growth as well as throughout the world. Cotton prices rise with the Port of Mersin, in terms of export volume comes out on top even in Beirut. As well as port and rail foot, the third leg of nomadic peoples, goes quickly become entrenched in this period. State is experiencing as a result of the settlement policy followed since the 1860s. My Upper Plains and around the Ceyhan I also made agricultural production for export. It also put the population migration-related settlement there. Thus Cukurova is growing literally and large farms are starting to be installed. Thus obtained a large income is invested back in the soil. This completely changes the face of the Çukurova.

What is the share of the Armenians in this face change?

Unfortunately not so easy to work with property in Ottoman history. So exactly bilemesek also essential share in the commercial development of the non-Muslims, non-Muslims in the emerging with 1890 as the Armenians. But I’m not talking about an overwhelming majority. Muslims always have in this development. But I can tell the owners of land on a large scale that many of the Armenians in the Ottoman context. But we are talking about a very large geographical area. The presence of Armenians in the Lower Plain and Feke I Haçin more netk that, across the plain, it is not clear enough. In addition to cotton, as well as gardening and the area is well developed in the same period can be said to belong to the majority of Muslims.

Met to nervously by Muslims. League of Muhammadiyah, an important component in this regard. But I do not want to overstate this anxiety too, because there is no indication that overall we have to be worried about. In 1908, often depicted with enthusiasm in the streets. That it occurred in Adana and Mersin in the city center and only non-Muslims should be noted that this enthusiasm for life. In July 1908, but still up to the period from March 31 Incident, already a troubled period of time. We can say it was the same for Cukurova. Economic terms in 1908, the region does not lead to a big change. Therefore, it is yet too early to talk about a social explosion could bring such a change.

Adana in April of 1909 before have such an ethnic conflict environment can be envisaged?

I tried to take much of the track that, but look ahead to what is written in an environment or can anticipate such carnage seems to be something in the air. But it is not possible to clearly see such a plan. The atmosphere is rising dramatically in 1908 as the city’s article. The revolutionary enthusiasm of the Armenian bothers Muslims. This enthusiasm is interpreted as the Armenians do not trust them too much. In March League of Muhammadiyah’s -31 in March just before the Incident because of the Ittihad-i Muhammadiyah community gathered around the volcano newspaper another name- new establishment in Adana made the meeting on the establishment of branches and provocative out there. This massacre, we need to evaluate more than 1908 in the atmosphere. Even allowing the massacre plan but it is still a few weeks before the April.

Armenian massacres of 1894-96, followed by the Adana Massacres of 1909 and the end of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, we think, we can mention the constantly rising wave of violence against the Armenians?

Looking at this question in terms of violence to say yes. However, the need to separate these, 1909 Adana Massacre, similar to the 1894-96 massacres more. After the Constitutional Revolution in 1908. Although there is the case. Because 1909 is a year where there is still in the throes of revolution. However, when examined in terms of regional characteristics, which of course is divided into 1915.

Adana, 1909: New book on Genocide published in Turkey

February 14, 2015 by administrator

Adana, massacres of 20,000 Armenians 1909

A book providing a fresh insight into the history of the Armenian Genocide has been published in Turkey to introduce witness testimonies depicting the massacres of 20,000 Armenians.
Entitled “1909 Adana Pogroms: Three Reports”, the book comprises three major documents which gained importance after wide-ranging debates in Ottoman Empire and worldwide. It sheds light on the pogroms that started from Adana and later expanded to Kilis and Zeytun. Ari Shekerian has translated the book from the Ottoman language. It also contains photos taken in more than 40 regions.

The author of the preface is Turkish historian Tener Akcam. The reports by Karapet Chalian, Artin Aslanian and Hakob Papikian were published 106 years after the mass killings.
The authors’ biographies add interest to the historic records.

Papikyan, who was in a fact-finding mission dispatched to Adana after the pogroms, passed away in rather suspicious circumstances a day before the report was made public.

Chalian, who was considered a founder of Ittihat ve Teraki (secret society established as the Committee of Ottoman Union), was killed in 1920. Aslanian rejected to give any testimony and later fled to Egypt, where he wrote the report.

report tert.am

Time to Unite time to #deturkification of Washington

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Turkey: 1909 Adana Massacre tells the insider witnesses

February 13, 2015 by administrator

Aras Publishing, began in Adana in April 1909, and then emitted in Kilis and Zeitun and more than 20 thousand Armenians were killed in the massacre island to witness the behind the scenes sheds light, brought together by a very important book reader. Agos news Report

Ari’s Şekeryan compiled and translated from the Ottoman ‘1909 Adana Massacre: Three Report titled book, which was immediately followed by three important reports pen Ottoman massacre major impact in the world and brings together. In the book, offered more than 40 photographs of the period.

Çalyan weirdness of the ‘Island of the case and accountable’, Artin Arslanian ‘How was convicted in Adana Justice?’ and Hagop Babigyan the ‘Adana’ Report consisting of the report and until released by Taner Akcam’s preface to the book, Calvin and Arslanian, in their report on the insiders of events 106 then transports the reader for the first time in Turkish. The Babigyan’s report contains important observations about the destruction of responsibility and government officials across the province.

Biography of the writer, reports makes it even more interesting. After the massacre of Deputies-located Edirne deputy of the first investigative commission sent to Adana by the Deputies Babigy, presenting the book with the reports in Parliament suspiciously lost their lives in the day before; While Calvin is one of the founders of the Union and Progress Party in Adana in 1920 and have been involved in the defense of pilgrims were killed after the fall of the city. Arslanian also rejected the request to testify about the massacre fled to Egypt and there he wrote the report.

Turkey, Teenage Kurd killed in clashes in Adana

June 16, 2014 by administrator

A 15-year-old Kurdish teenager has been killed in clashes between police and protesters in the Turkish city of Adana.

The teen reportedly died on Sunday during a demonstration held against the construction of new military posts in the southern Turkish city.

According to reports, the teenager was hit in the head by a stun grenade fired by security forces.

Several demonstrations have been held in Kurdish-majority areas over the construction of new army posts, which are considered by some as a threat to the peace process between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

On June 6, two Kurdish protestors were killed during clashes between protesters and security forces in Lice, in the southeastern Diyarbakir Province, where the government is constructing military barracks.

The deaths sparked demonstrations across Turkey. Diyarbakir has been a scene of protests against the Turkish government for the past few days.

Also on Sunday, dozens of Kurdish protesters took to the streets in Istanbul to express their anger at the killing of the two Kurds.

The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is holding peace talks with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party to end a 30-year conflict. The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead. The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by many countries.

Turkish court indicts 13 soldiers who had intercepted a convoy to Syria

May 8, 2014 by administrator

AFP – Turkish court has charged 13 soldiers who had stopped in January trucks Turkish secret services en route to Syria, calling for each of them to life in prison, said on Thursday the Turkish media.

The 13 men will soon be tried in Adana (south), where the incident occurred, to an as yet undetermined date and the indictment which aims requires life in prison, said the Dogan news agency. The suspects are accused of including “leaking state information for political or espionage,” the agency said.

Teams gendarmerie corps in Turkey, were stopped and searched in Adana, a city near the Syrian border, seven trucks on the basis of information received that they were carrying weapons and ammunition. The authorities stated that the personnel on board consisted of members of the national intelligence agency (MIT), on official mission.

Trucks are left after excavation and the government, very angry, announced they were carrying aid to the Turkmen minority in northern Syria and denied any supply of arms. The soldiers who had intercepted the trucks subsequently relieved of their duties.

The incident intervened in full corruption scandal that has tainted the Islamic-conservative government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after revelations in mid-December and for which the prime minister accused the Brotherhood preacher Fethullah Gülen have manufactured evidence.

Erdogan has conducted an extensive purge from the judiciary and the police, manipulated, according to him, by the Gülen movement to overthrow him. The power was also passed in Parliament in March a controversial law that gives increased powers at MIT. The new legislation grants including judicial impunity for members of the MIT in the exercise of their functions.

The government in Ankara is a fierce opponent of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and hosts the exiled opposition, but has repeatedly denied having supplied weapons to the insurgents. However, in December, the Turkish media, citing UN documents and the government, said that the country had sent 47 tons of weapons to the rebels since June 2013.