We would like to share with you here a summary of various events and statements from Turkey.

At the end of December, there was an attack by armed lumpen on a reader of Partizan.The target of the lumpen gang attack in the Gazi district of Istanbul was "Munzur's Breakfast Cafe", a restaurant run by Partizan reader Asker Akkoç, in which Asker Akkoç was injured by gunshots. In the attack, the bullets injured Akkoç in the hip, arms and legs. Partizan and the democratic and revolutionary newspaper "Yeni demokrasi" informed in the aftermath of the events that Akkoç was the target of the attack due to his activism against fundamentalist groups and sects in the neighborhood.

Picture of the entrance area of the attacked breakfast café

Armed lumpen gangs attacking revolutionaries is not an uncommon phenomenon in Turkey, often under the direct or indirect instruction of the old Turkish state which encourages them to operate openly against revolutionaries in working class neighborhoods.

In a subsequent statement by Partizan, they strongly condemned the attack and the comrades firmly declared that they will not allow lumpen gangs and sects to intimidate the revolutionaries, progressive people and masses with counter-revolutionary violence.  Partizan also reaffirmed that it will continue to wage the war against misery, decay and inhumanity together with the people and readers like Akkoç without compromise.

In January of this year, Partizan, together with the families of martyrs and prisoners, held a week of commemoration of the martyrs of the party and the revolution as every year in which, among other things, the graves of the fallen comrades were visited in order to commemorate them with dignity and to honor and uphold their revolutionary example and to learn from them to do everything for the development of the new democratic revolution in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan and to continue the work of the martyrs.  One day before the visits and commemorations at the graves of the fallen revolutionaries, the Turkish police harassed the families of the martyrs and blocked the entrances to the cemeteries in order to prevent the living commemoration of the revolutionaries. This procedure has been repeated in a similar form several times in recent years and, as every year, the revolutionaries and their families and friends could not be prevented from visiting the cemeteries and holding the commemorations.

Two statements were also published in January, which we would like to present here.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the Turkish Communist Party/Marxist-Leninists published a statement on the 100th anniversary of the death of the great Lenin in which they explain, among other things, the central importance of the People's War as an essential strategy of liberation for the revolution in Turkey and also refer to the week in commemoration of the martyrs of the party and revolution. An unofficial English translation of this statement can be found here on redherald.org.

The Foreign Committee of the TKP/ML also published a statement on this occasion, an unofficial English translation of which can also be found on redherald.org.

All images are taken from redherald.org and yenidemokrasi34.net.