TURKEY SAYS "NO" TO BURIAL OF ARAM TIGRAN IN DIYARBEKIR
2009 /08/13 | 16:19
Diaspora
Turkey’s Ministry of the Interior has not allowed the body of noted
Armenian singer Aram Tigran to be buried in Diyarbekir as he wished
before passing on August 6.
His family has thus decided to bury him in the Armenian graveyard in
Brussels. The funeral is planned to take place on 17 August.
Inhabitants of Diyarbekir have staged a symbolic funeral instead. On
12 August, the ceremony at the Armenian graveyard in Diyarbakir was
attended by Metropolitan Diyarbekýr mayor Osman Baydemir.
Baydemir said that they would take soil from the graveyard in
Diyarbekýr to Brussels to honour the musician’s wish. A delegation
from Diyarbekýr will arrive in Brussels on August 14.
The mayor said, "They did not allow him to come back to his soil, but
with your permission, in your name, we will take from this graveyard
the soil which he longed for and wanted to be buried in, and, even if
it is only symbolic, take it to his grave. Thus we will try to live
with the peace of mind that we at least fulfilled his wish partially."
Baydemir expressed his sadness at not being able to bury Tigran
in the city: "It is not our shame, but the shame of those who made
that decision."
At the ceremony, people held placards prepared by the Democratic
Society Movement and the Mesopotamia Democratic Cultural Movement. The
poster read in Kurdish and Armenian, "The people’s nightingale has
been left without a home."
Fýrat Anlý, province chair of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) said,
"If Tigran had been buried in this soil today, it would have made
this place richer. Because we pulled out their roots in this soil
and threw them away. Perhaps it could have been a kind of apology
to Armenians and Assyrians and to all the people of the Mesopotamia
area whose value we did not appreciate, and whose lives and cultures
we targeted. With the person of Aram Tigran we would have had the
opportunity to face the past in order to build a new future."
DTP MP Aysel Tuðluk said, "Tigran was an artist who protested,
saying that all identities, all languages and all beliefs should be
free. That is why this region, this society, the Kurdish people will
not forget Aram Tigran."
Tigran, who sang many songs in Kurdish, died in Greece, where he had
been living since 1995.
Last year he had expressed the wish to be buried in Diyarbekýr, and
his family applied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after his death.
According to Hilal Koylu from the Radikal newspaper, because there
is no standard procedure for non-Turkish citizens to be buried in
the country, the question was taken to the Ministry of the Interior,
which gave a negative reply.