May 4^th marks the 80^th anniversary of the 1937 Dersim Massacre that took the lives of hundreds of Alevi Gazas, as well as Kurds and Armenians.

The military operations that began in Dersim on 25 December 1935 and became official on 4 May 1937 continued until 1939 in general.

According to demokrathaber.org, the Dersim Massacre took the lives of more than 72,000 people. Thousands of people were exiled without a court ruling, and many are missing to this day.

However, the 4^th of May 1937 is considered the turning point in the history of Dersim and the largest military operation that was carried out during the Dersim Massacre. It was on 4 May that Sabiha Gokcen, known as the first Turkish female pilot in the history of Turkey and the first female bomber in the world, intensively bombarded several regions of Dersim under the order of the First President of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Let us mention that the article devoted to Sabiha Gokcen (“Sabiha Gokcen or Khatun Sebiljian?”), which was written by famous Istanbul-Armenian journalist, intellectual and founding editor of Agos Weekly Hrant Dink and presented the story of how Sabiha Gokcen (adopted by Ataturk) was actually one of the Armenian orphans at the orphanage in Aintab, later became one of the pivotal points of the campaign to kill Dink.

“During the years of the Erdogan administration, the Dersim Massacre, which had been considered a closed subject until then, frequently became a topic for discussions. However, to this day, no step has been taken to bring the people responsible for the Dersim Massacre to justice,” writes the oppositional website, reports tert.am.

In an interview with demokrathaber.org, chairman of the office of advocates of Dersim Baris Yildirim informed that his office was preparing to officially submit to the authorities a demand to give an official apology for the Dersim Massacre.