Murdered for music

In Turkey, musicians are being targeted for their political views, for their Kurdish background or for simply performing, writes KAYA GENÇ

ON 2 MAY 2023, Cihan Aymaz, a 30-year-old Kurdish musician, sang a song with his saz (a traditional folk string instrument) by the Kadikoy ferry pier, a seaside hub in Istanbul’s Asian side. Hundreds walked past him on their way to the ferry during the day: he had performed there for the past two years. Some of those who listened to his songs paid Aymaz for his music in solidarity.

Mehmet Caymaz felt differently. When he requested that Aymaz play the nationalistic song Ölürüm Turkiyem (I’ll Die For You, Turkey), Caymaz considered it an order. But Aymaz refused Caymaz’s request. Infuriated, Caymaz pulled out a knife and stabbed the musician repeatedly, including in the heart. Aymaz fell into the water. To flee the surrounding crowd, Caymaz also jumped in and tried to swim away. The coastguard fished him out of the water, and detained and handcuffed him.

In January that year, Aymaz had gone to court for singing a song he had adapted from Aşik Mahzuni Şerif, an Alevi folk musician and composer. Since the 16th century, some orthodox Sunnis have considered Alevis as rebels and dissidents. The song also has lyrics highlighting Turkey’s economic collapse. Aymaz’s family believes his killing by the Kadikoy pier, in front of thousands of pedestrians, was a political or racially-motivated murder rather than simply due to a burst of rage. “I told him so many times not to voice his political views, that people would murder him for doing so, but he didn’t listen to me,” his mother, Birgul Aymaz, told the Turkish press.

BELOW: A man plays a daf, a flat handheld drum, during Newroz celebrations in Istanbul. Newroz marks Kurdish new year and is a festival of music and dance

CREDIT: AP Photo / Francisco Seco / Alamy

A day after the murder, musicians left guitars, hand drums, tambourines and clarions at the spot where Aymaz was killed to commemorate him. In July 2024, Caymaz was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The murder was part of a pattern of animosity and violence against Turkey’s musicians over the past half-decade. And that was just one of the issues they had to contend with.

When Covid-19 struck in 2020, musicians lost the opportunity to perform in public venues; after the partial reopening of the country, they had to accept smaller concert royalties because of reduced demand, and many were forced to change careers.

Jehan istiklal Barbur, a Turkish singer-songwriter of Arab Christian descent, told BBC’s Turkish edition she was making and selling jewellery to make ends meet.

Many independent concert and theatre venues reported not receiving any financial support from Turkey’s culture ministry during the pandemic, and ultimately went bankrupt. Between July 2021 and May 2022, the government banned live music after midnight.

Harun Tekin, lead singer of the band Mor ve Ötesi, wrote on social media that the music sector was going through difficult times: “Dear people, Turkey’s concert and music industries are about to end, be aware of this.”

Musicians have always been subjected to violence and bullying

Onur Şener was another musician trying to navigate this atmosphere and make ends meet. The 45-year-old, who had a daughter, was singing in a venue in the capital Ankara on 2 October 2022 when he was attacked with beer glasses and had his throat cut. He was attacked after he refused to sing a song he had been asked for.

In July 2023, İlker Karakaş and Ali Gündüz were each given 25 years in prison for the murder. They had worked for the Ministry of Labour and Social Security since 2012. Şener’s death changed the life of Naim Dilmener, a music critic and historian, who quit DJ-ing after the murder. Dilmener spoke to Index about his experiences.

He had DJ-ed in Turkey for years, but around the time of Şener’s murder he noticed a change. He was in a venue in southern Turkey when a group of people went to the DJ booth and stopped him from playing a Kurdish song by the singer Aynur. He said the venue owner approached him and told him: “Stop this song immediately, or there will be chaos.” Dilmener complied.

Another time, he says he was playing an Aynur song at a party for the Antalya International Film Festival when the venue owner cut the power. “The party ended there,” he said. “You see, I don’t learn from past mistakes!”

After these incidents, Dilmener sat down and told himself: “Stop this job before something happens to you.” He stopped DJ-ing. Dilmener explained how Şener’s death was linked with intolerance in Turkish society.

“Some people don’t want to be rejected under any circumstances,” he said. “They see themselves as the owners of that venue. Since they are there and have paid, or will pay, they think musicians should be at their disposal and fulfil all their wishes: singers, players, DJs, the whole set.” Money has “bankrupted humanity” in Turkey, he added.

ABOVE: A musical performance takes place at a peaceful protest in Istanbul in 2013. The protest was met with tear gas and water cannons by Turkish police

CREDIT: Claudia Wiens / Alamy

In a country where even DJ-ing can be dangerous, musicians must be extra brave when going on stage to sing to big crowds. When Suavi, an Ankara-based performer of Turkish folk music, played at a concert organised by Istanbul’s Beykoz district council on 19 August 2024, a group of nationalists raided the concert, shouting far-right slogans and accusing Suavi of being a terrorist. Unfazed, Suavi continued singing. A fortnight later, the far-right group convinced a council in Konya to cancel his next concert because “it didn’t align with national sensitivities”.

Suavi told Index that the attack on his concert and the subsequent cancellation “cannot be evaluated independently of how the government handles the Kurdish reality”. The objective, Suavi said, was to “instil fear in all opposition artists through me and to gain ground for fascists”.

Violence against musicians in Turkey has a long history that predates these incidents. “Musicians have always been subjected to violence and bullying, regardless of the violence that has increased in recent years due to the economic crisis,” Mehmet Tez told Index.

The music columnist for the daily newspaper Milliyet, Tez believes people in Turkey “have always been violent towards musicians, especially in small places”. He added: “I think male-dominated culture and the complexes that come with it come into play at some point.” Tez worked as a musician in bars and clubs during his university years. “I’ve been through many things,” he said of his musical youth. “Even though we worked in relatively civilised places, we were threatened with guns on the table because we didn’t play a request. If someone like me, who has been doing this job for a limited time, has stories like these, think about [what professionals have been through]. This is an issue that shouldn’t be underestimated.”

Leftists and dissidents in general have always been labelled as harmful in our country

Tez wasn’t surprised at the killing of Şener. “Unfortunately, people always take these kinds of issues personally,” he said.

Dilmener said that despite attempts to hide the political context of the violence, the killings have exposed Turkish politicians’ resentment of free thought. “They pretend to be extremely liberal and democratic or try to appear so, but it snows on their image when such incidents come to the agenda. For this reason, they do not want it to be heard, known and spread,” he said.

Dilmener, who is 68, also pointed to broader patterns in Turkey that indicate violence towards musicians. “Leftists and dissidents in general have always been labelled as harmful in our country, and efforts have always been made to put spokes in their wheels,” he said.

He recalled the 12 September 1980 coup, when prominent pop stars Şanar Yurdatapan, Melike Demirag and Cem Karaca had to flee. “[They] all went abroad, thinking they would be tried and imprisoned, and they lived in exile for years,” he said.

The assaults on Turkey’s musicians are part of a broader culture war in the country. “On the one hand, there is the oppression of the government, and on the other hand the brutal force, violent actions and sometimes even threats with weapons from supporters who are more royalist than the king,” Dilmener said. “It’s all so clear. Those who do not side with the government have been through a lot. They have been left unemployed, and their movements have been restricted. On top of that, they are beaten, even killed.”

The silver lining of the latest wave of violence is the solidarity it ignited among musicians. Ankara’s mayor, Mansur Yavaş, organised a solidarity concert for Şener’s family in 2022.

He wrote on social media: “We are experiencing the pain of musician Onur Şener, who was taken from life yesterday. At the request of his artist friends, we will organise a concert together for Onur and donate the income to his family. We will keep his memory alive and will always be against tyranny.”

On 2 November that year, a symphony orchestra and a group of musicians sang songs to support Şener’s family. In December, Şener’s schoolmates from TED College, where he graduated, went to Cayyolu Neighbourhood to plant the Onur Şener Memorial Forest.

While news about attacks against musicians in venues where patrons pay for entry horrify the public, the treatment of street musicians is under-reported. Tez, the music writer, said they “are much more vulnerable and threatened than musicians playing in venues”.

He added: “The murder by the Kadikoy pier was, unfortunately, the most obvious proof of this situation. The problem of violence against musicians is, of course, a part of the general violence in society, but it deserves to be addressed separately.”

There are probably numerous other incidents against musicians in Turkey but the public knows only about the ones that

result in deaths. Most likely, Tez said, “in the eyes of the authorities”, violence against musicians is “not important enough to be addressed separately”.

Suavi, the assaulted singer, said he was surprised by people’s support “for me and against this disgusting plot”. He praised Ozgur Ozel, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, the CHP, for defending him. “His acknowledgment of the attack and clear attitude were crucial for not only me but all opposition artists,” Suavi said. “People saw the outcome of organised action and how effective that can be.”

But he also issued a warning: “This is not just an issue about me. Racist attacks, from targeting musicians in the middle of the street because they sing Kurdish songs to killing people because they did not play the song someone wanted at any entertainment venue, can be solved only as a whole within the framework of the democracy problem. If we’re going to live in peace in this country and break these and similar attacks, and gradually create a free country, we have to do this together.”

Melis Danişmend, a singer who recently wrote a book about returning to live at her parents’ house following the collapse of Istanbul’s concert scene in the early 2020s, told Index she feared for her future as a musician in the country.

“We have become a society that lives with anger, is raised with anger and feeds on anger,” she said. “The fact that musicians are killed for not playing a requested song shows how sad our situation is.

“I long for the days when the logic of ‘If you don’t do what I want, I will do what I want’ is over and when people respect the law and don’t harm musicians or anyone.” ✘