Türkiye’s Constitutional Court ruled on July 23 that compensation must be paid to the families of victims killed in the 1993 Madımak Hotel arson attack, finding that the judicial authorities failed to conduct an effective investigation into one of the country’s deadliest sectarian massacres.
An extremist mob set the Madımak Hotel ablaze during the four-day Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Festival in the central Anatolian city of Sivas on July 2, 1993, killing 35 people, most of them Alevi intellectuals, writers and artists.
Remembered as the Madımak Massacre, the attack has remained one of the darkest episodes in Türkiye’s recent history. More than three decades later, it continues to spark controversy not only because of the loss of life but also over allegations of official negligence, shortcomings in the judicial process, fugitive suspects, statutes of limitations and the release of convicted perpetrators.
Relatives of those killed filed an application with the country’s top court in 2014, arguing that the judicial proceedings had not been conducted effectively.
The application was examined 12 years later during the Constitutional Court’s General Assembly meeting on July 23.
The applicants contended that the authorities’ failure to carry out an effective criminal investigation into the Sivas massacre constituted a violation of the procedural aspect of the right to life.
The Constitutional Court upheld the claim, ruling that the “procedural dimension” of the right to life was violated. It ordered the payment of non-pecuniary damages to the applicants.
The ruling came only weeks after ceremonies marking the 33rd anniversary of the massacre. On July 2, hundreds of people marched through Sivas to commemorate the victims of the 1993 attack while renewing calls for justice and demanding that the former Madımak Hotel be officially designated as a “Museum of Shame.”
