By Esteban
TURKEY — On May 23, 2026, Yeni Demokrasi reported that the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Tunceli, Türkiye, had initiated an investigation into its newspaper and Sosyalizm U Azadi, a similar revolutionary publication. Four different issues of Yeni Demokrasi and 14 issues of Sosyalizm of U Azadi were requested for confiscation order. The local Magistrates’ Court later issued a ban on printing, distribution, and sale of these issues, claiming they contained “organizational propaganda.”
Umut Publishing was also targeted for repression by the local Tunceli authorities, with the Magistrates’ Court issuing orders to confiscate and ban seven of its published books. The decision stated that the “books are deemed to contain statements and expressions constituting propaganda for a ‘terrorist organization,’ and cited Turkish anti-terrorism and press laws.
The fact that this repression is taking place in Tunceli, which is the Kurdish-majority capital of the province of the same name, is illustrative of the overarching history of Turkish repression in the region. “Tunceli” meaning “bronze fist” in Turkish, is a modern name, forced upon the city and the province in recent history, and one as a humiliating threat of violence upon the population. The mountainous province between central and eastern Anatolia was known as Dersim in local languages for centuries and is historically home to a Kurdish Alevi majority population.
Kurdish Alevis are a distinct ethnoreligious community who rose up in a series of rebellions against the Turkish government in the 1920s and 30s. Throughout the period, chauvinistic Turkification policies targeting Kurds and other minorities were enacted, including boarding schools for Kurdish Alevi children, the renaming of places to Turkish, the imposition of Turkish as the only and official language, and forced mass relocations of Kurds and Turks in and around the region, all leading to an armed rebellion by the people of Dersim in 1936, rising up for their inherent right to self-determination and an end to these abuses.
The Dersim Rebellion was quelled in a series of three operations in 1937-38, all named “Tunceli.” Turkish armed forces unleashed extreme violence toward the population killing between 13,000 and 70,000 people, and deporting thousands more. This event has become known as the Dersim Massacre and the fact that the province and capital were named after this bloodshed is an explicit boast by the central Turkish government. Despite all intervening decades, the debate over the use of Dersim or Tunceli continues to this day. The armed struggle for Kurdish Alevi self-determination carries on as well up in the mountains, despite facing overwhelming odds.
This is not the first time that Yeni Demokrasi and other comradely newspapers and publishers are facing state repression, nor are they the last such principled organizations to be persecuted over the decades. They continue to struggle in the proud revolutionary tradition of Ibrahim Kaypakayya and the TIKKO guerillas. Sympathetic revolutionaries would do well to educate others surrounding the history of the people’s war in Türkiye and stand in solidarity with Yeni Demokrasi, who have provided our movement in the United States with foundational analysis. To the principled comrades of Yeni Demokrasi, Sosyalizm U Azadi, and Umut Publishing, we salute you as you face this latest wave of Turkish state repression.
