Newspaper distributer Karaağar: Never gave up despite threats 

2023-01-18 12:05:41


	 

	VAN - The perpetrators of journalist Orhan Karaağar, who did not give up distributing the Özgür Gündem newspaper despite death threats, were not revealed even after 30 years.

	 

	It has been 30 years since the murder of Orhan Karaağar, the distributor of Özgür Gündem Newspaper. The perpetrators of Karaağar, who was murdered by a gunmen while he was going home one evening, have still not been found in the past 30 years. Karaağar, who was arrested during the September 12 coup and spent 2 and a half years in Diyarbakır Prison, took part in the founding of the Human Rights Association (İHD) in Van after his release. Karaağar, who started working for the Özgür Gündem newspaper in 1991, said: "I will distribute the newspaper as long as I live," despite receiving death threats tens of times.

	 

	Karaağar's brother Eşref Karaağar said, "He was a good person and a revolutionary, I think that's what it takes to be human. He adapted the revolutionary character to his life. That's how we know him. He was taken into custody after the coup and sent to Diyarbakır Prison. He came to Van right after he was released. He started working for the newspaper."

	 

	'I WAS THE ONE WHO LAST SAW MY BROTHER ALIVE'

	 

	Stating that Karaağar distributed newspapers at a time when unsolved murders were systematic in Turkey, Eşref Karaağar said, "We were all worried. Especially his wife and mother were afraid he could be murdered. But against all the pressure, Orhan chose Özgür Gündem Newspaper as his living space. He continued to distribute newspapers even though he knew he could be killed. I was the last to see him before he was murdered. I left work in the evening, I went to the bazaar, we met with my brother on the road. He had a bag of bread in his hand. I asked him where he was going, he said he was going home, and told we should go home together. But I told I was busy and did not go with him. He was detained a few days ago and held there for a few days. He was threatened not to continue distribute newspaper. Then I finished work, went home, my mother asked where my brother was. I told him I saw him that afternoon and told her that he was coming home with a bag of bread in his hand."

	 

	THE DAY HE WAS MURDERED

	 

	Stating that the police knocked on their door shortly after the conversation with his mother, Eşref Karaağar said, "The door was knocked, I went to open the door thinking it could be my brother. But it was the plain clothes policeman. They told me to go to the police station with them. They took me to the place where my brother was killed. He was lying there. They murdered my brother. The killers were never caught and his murder remained an unsolved murder."

	 

	KILLERS WERE NOT PROSECUTED

	 

	Reminding that two people named confessor Murat İpek and Murat Demir gave information about the incident in a magazine's after a while after the murder of his brother Karaağar, Karaağar said, "It was an assassination to be carried our by their team, but he said that Kadir Karataş team did it before they arrived. When we saw it in the article, we thought there would be consequences. We waited for a while. We later saw that they brought a few people we know to be from Hizbullah to the court. But no one was prosecuted and it remained an unsolved murder."

	 

	'NOTHING CHANGED'

	 

	Noting that nothing changed in terms of pressuring the press for the last 30 years, Karaağar said: "It only went worse. More journalists and intellectuals are in prison. But we are not hopeless. We believe that things will change and the unsolved murders will one day be revealed."