Hıdır Aslan

Hıdır Aslan (1958 – 25 October 1984) was a Kurdish rebel in Turkey and member of Devrimci Yol who was sentenced to death and executed by hanging.

He was born 1958 in Hozat, Tunceli Province. Due to his success at the secondary school in his hometown, he was sent to Ankara for high school. He got interested in politics during his high school years. For his participation in a political incident, he was tried and imprisoned for seven months. In 1978, he moved to İzmir, where he was involved in armed actions of Devrimci Yol, an illegal Marxist-Leninist movement. Following a week of confrontations between the workers class and the Turkish authorities, Aslan was arrested on 26 February 1980 in İzmir and put in prison in Buca. He was accused of murdering three law enforcement officers. Following trials lasting for four years, he was sentenced to death along with two other comrades. At the end he was convicted of being the leader of the local Devirmci Yol but was not found guilty for a murder. The European Parliament as well as Amnesty International condemned the fact that he was not charged of a violent crime, but for his opposition to the current government.