RIGHTS >Alevi family's home stoned, stable torched in southeastern Turkey

ISTANBUL

The home of an Alevi family was stoned and their stables burned down by an angry mob yesterday after the family allegedly told a Ramadan drummer not to wake them for sahur, the meal before sunrise. 

Members of the Evli family in the Sürgü village of the southeastern Malatya province allegedly asked a Ramadan drummer not to drum in front of their home the night of July 28 as they were not fasting and had work early in the morning. The two sides quarreled after the drummer rejected the family’s request. 

News of the incident was heard throughout the village and a mob of around 60 people gathered in front of the Evli family’s house yesterday. The group hurled stones at the family's home and said the family members were “Kurds and Alevis.” The small contingent of gendarmerie soldiers in the villlage was unable to contain the crowd so reinforcements were called in from the Doğanşehir district. 

The group reportedly chanted slogans, yelled “Allahu ekber,” meaning God is great, sang the Turkish national anthem and said “this family will leave this place.” Evli family members turned off their lights and hid in their homes in terror. The group also set a stable belonging to the Evli family on fire, which prompted the gendarmerie to fire shots into the air.  

Security forces were able to disperse the crowd after reinforcements arrived.

Hasan Hüseyin Evli, whose home was attacked, said his family had wanted to live in peace together as Alevis and Sunnis. “We do not want such incidents, we have never hurt anyone,” he said. 

Leyla Evli showed journalists the stones hurled at her home by the mob. “They came to lynch us. They shouted ‘death to Kurds, death to Alevis.’ They told us to leave and threatened to kill us if we did not,” she said.

Calm was restored in Sürgü after gendarmerie forces took measures in the village to increase security and placed officers on patrol around the Evli family’s house today.

July/30/2012

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