ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) on Sunday elected Yunus Muratakan as co-chair of its Diyarbakir (Amed) provincial branch, drawing widespread attention on social media after a 1996 video resurfaced showing him as a nine-year-old speaking out against the village guard system.
Muratakan was elected alongside Fatime Izol Levent during the party’s third ordinary provincial congress in Diyarbakir, attended by DEM Party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan and representatives of political parties and civil society organizations.
In the autumn of 1996, villagers in Lice district gathered outside the mayor’s office after hearing that human rights groups had arrived in the area to investigate reports that authorities were pressuring residents to join the village guard system.
When a journalist approached the then-nine-year-old Muratakan, he spoke angrily about the alleged forced recruitment of villagers.
"No one wants it. No one in Lice wants it… We are from Lice and no one in Lice wants to become a village guard. The commander says ‘We offer to pay money.’ We don’t want money. We will pay them money and let them be village guards," he told the journalist.
The footage resurfaced on social media in 2020 and circulated widely again following Muratakan’s election on Sunday.
When the video resurfaced six years ago, Muratakan told Duvar news outlet that any child growing up in the same environment would have expressed similar views.
"The microphone was put in front of me at the time, and I spoke. If that microphone had been put in front of any of my friends there, they would have said the same things. The child speaking there is just any child. Anyone, not me, would have said the same things." he told Duvar in 2020.
Rudaw has learned that Muratakan’s father was among numerous villagers allegedly pressured to join the village guard system. He and many others managed to escape and leave their villages.
Turkey established the village guard system in 1985, arming and paying mainly Kurdish villagers to assist security forces during the conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Human rights organizations have documented allegations of coercion, abuses and forced displacement associated with the system.
Muratakan later became a lawyer in Diyarbakir and has worked on cases related to events during the conflict in the 1990s.
His election on Sunday, nearly 30 years after the childhood interview, brought the old footage back into circulation, attracting widespread attention on Kurdish and Turkish social media.
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