Three Turkish musicians die in protest against the government. Here's who they were and what they were demanding

They were fighting to defend the rights of the oppressed in Turkey ruled by Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, as well as for a better world in which everyone can express themselves freely: for this three musicians from the band Grup Yorum (“Commentary” in Turkish) lost their lives. The last to go, last May 7, was bassist Ä°brahim Gökçek, who died at the age of 40, and before him had lost his life, on April 3, singer Helin Bölek, and shortly after, on April 25, Mustafa Koçak, also a singer, 28 years old like Helin Bölek, had died: he, unlike his two colleagues and fellow fighters, had been in prison, in solitary confinement since October 4, 2017, on a life sentence.

Koçak, in particular, had been accused of being an accomplice in the kidnapping of a judge in Istanbul in 2015, which ended in tragedy with the death of the magistrate and the two far-left militants who had seized him: Koçak had ended up the victim of a vast operation that led to many arrests, and ended with a sentence that came at the end of a trial that, according to the opposition, violated every legal and moral norm. He died despite denouncing the torture and violations he suffered in prison and despite the fact that he had continued to demand a fair and just trial.

To protest against the government, Gökçek, Bölek, and Koçak had chosen the mode of a hunger strike, widely used in Turkey by political dissidents, and begun for all three in June 2019. Helin Bölek lasted 288 days without eating and staying alive only through water and vitamins, Koçak passed away after 297 days of hunger strike, and Gökçek lost his life after 323 days. Grup Yorum had been accused by the government of carrying out activities related to terrorism, and because of this, the government had prevented the band from playing since 2015, and some members had also been jailed on charges of flouting institutions and belonging to terrorist organizations. In order to break their hunger strike, the three musicians demanded that the Turkish government lift the ban on playing and release the other members of the band still in jail (Gökçek had also been jailed, but was released last February, and the same had happened to Helin Bölek).

ErdoÄŸan, probably on the back of international pressure mounted in the wake of Bölek and Koçak’s deaths, had granted the revocation last May 5, and Ä°brahim Gökçek had broken the very long fast by being hospitalized in Istanbul: the bassist, however, was already at the end of his rope and, undermined by very serious conditions, did not make it.

Ä°brahim Gökçek, Helin Bölek and Mustafa Koçak before the hunger strike

Ä°brahim Gökçek, Helin Bölek and Mustafa Koçak during the hunger strike.

Ten days before his death, he had written an open letter, which was published in the French newspaper L’Humanité and later translated around the world. “My name is Ibrahim Gökçek,” the musician wrote in the text. “For 15 years I played bass guitar in Grup Yorum. Grup Yorum, created 35 years ago by four students, has a history as complicated as Turkey’s. This history led us to a hunger strike to the point of death in order to play concerts again. One of us, my dear comrade Helin Bölek, died on April 3, the 288th day of fasting to death. I am the one who picked up her baton. You may be asking ’Why do members of a music group go on a hunger strike until death? Why do they choose such a frightening means of struggle as unlimited fasting?’ Our answer lies in the burning reality that led Helin to sacrifice his life at the age of 28 and that drives me to dissolve more and more every day: we were born in the struggles for rights and freedoms that began in Turkey since 1980. Since then we have released 23 albums to bring together popular culture and socialist thought. 23 albums sold a total of more than 2 million copies. We have sung the rights of the oppressed in Anatolia and around the world. Everything those who fought for their rights, the opponents, those who dreamed of a free and democratic country, lived. We who sang their songs also experienced the same things: we were watched on sight, imprisoned, our concerts were forbidden, the police invaded our cultural center and smashed our instruments.”

“In February 2019,” the text reads later in the text, “during a meeting in our cultural center, I was arrested and in May 2019, we started a hunger strike to ’have the ban on our concerts lifted, to stop the attacks on our cultural center, to have all the imprisoned members of our group released and the trials initiated against them cancelled, and for our names to be removed from the terrorist list.’ Later, with Helin Bölek, we turned our action into an unlimited hunger strike. This meant that we would not give up this hunger strike until our demands were accepted. At the price, if necessary, of our own death. During our trials, Helin and I were released, but despite widespread popular support, that of artists and members of parliament, the government refused to listen to our demands. [...] Helin, now, rests in a cemetery in Istanbul, covered by a white sheet. Now the room next to mine is empty. As for me, who has been living inside a bed for some time, I do not know how my journey will end. Will the battle taking place in my body end in death? Or with the victory of life? What I know most strongly in this struggle is that as long as they do not accept our claims, I will cling to life even on this path to death.”

Currently, five other members of the group (all of whom were arrested in 2016 after the failed coup: Grup Yorum was considered a flanker) are in jail: singer Sultan Gökçek (Ä°brahim’s wife), Ali Aracı, Emel YeÅŸilırmak, Özgürcan Elbiz and Bergün Varan.

Grup Yorum is a folk music group (which also likes to present itself as a collective) consisting of many members and very popular in Turkey: famous is their performance in which they reinterpret Bella ciao before an audience of tens of thousands in Istanbul. But in their career, which began in 1985, they have also played in Germany, France, the UK, Greece, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Syria. Now, perhaps, they can start playing again in Turkey as well: for Ä°brahim Gökçek, the lifting of the ban was a “political victory.”

Pictured below: Ä°brahim Gökçek at Helin Bölek’s funeral, greeting his companion while holding her photo in his hands. From the Free Grup Yorum Twitter account.

Three Turkish musicians die in protest against the government. Here's who they were and what they were demanding

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