ANKARA - DAD Ankara Branch which issued a written statement on Çorum Massacre that started on May 1980 and continued until July, ended up with the killing of 57 people, said: "What happened in Çorum was a massacre carried out under state supervision."
The Çorum massacres was carried out between May and July 1980. Extremist Sunni Muslims, part of a "nationalist youth" campaign, targeted the Alevi community and murdered 57 left activists. Some 300 were injured. Many victims were young people and women.
The statement said: "What happened in Çorum in 1980 was an outright massacre under the supervision of the state. It is a massacre that started in May 1980 and continued until July and targeting the Alevi people."
The statement added: "As in every Alevi massacre, the community was victim of religious, physical, cultural, and economic genocide processes and violently pushed into an assimilation process. After each massacre, Alevis were faced with losing their lives, their property and their beliefs. The state played with the demographic structure implementing its Sunnization project within the framework of Turkish-Islamic synthesis. In Çorum, they tried to get rid of the Alevi as they had done in Ortaca, Maraş, Sivas and Malatya."