In remembrance and respect of Şehîd Berxwedan Çiyager
Heval Berxwedan Çiyager was a young brave Kurd from the city of Amed. After being raised in Istanbul and emigrated in Europe due to Turkish state’s persecution, he had been very influenced by the assassination of Evîn Goyî, Mîr Perwer and Abdurrahman Kızıl, happened in Paris on December 23rd, 2022, by the Turkish secret service. That further attack and act of violence towards the Kurdish people had eventually pushed him into the ranks of the Kurdistan’s Liberation Movement.
After attending an education period, he reached Eastern Kurdistan to fight with the Defence Forces of Eastern Kurdistan (YRK). On September 2nd, 2023, while he was in the region of Pêncewîn in the Iraq Kurdistan, a drone hit him and this way he became a martyr.
I met heval Berxwedan during the education period. His martyrdom has happened too soon. But for sure his devotion, his commitment and his bravery have left their footprint in the comrades that have met him. This text intends to be a memoir and a tribute for heval Berxwedan as I knew him, a youth and militant of the Movement. The news about the martyrdom of şehîd Berxwedan left a sense that is difficult to describe. Every comrade leaves something inside of us, and şehîd Berxwedan was the first comrade among those that I knew to fall martyr. The time spent together in education had been truly special. In fact, in education we spend many days together, organizing, eating together, reading and studying. Our ideas and emotions synchronized. Just the memory of that time and the bond that was built between us in that period made me emotional, causing me first of all huge anger towards the enemy and its deadly attacks.
During the education period I didn’t know Kurdish well and the relationships with Kurdish comrades developed with many difficulties. But one of the things I learned in those days is that, even without having a common language to communicate, you can understand a person very much. Heval Berxwedan was born in Amed, the city that Kurds recognize as the capital city of their land. He grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, but he remained very connected to his mother city in the “Welat”, the motherland, Kurdistan. He loved sport, played football and always talked about the city team “Amed Spor”. He said that one day he would have liked to go back there to work in sport and to make the team grow. He was a cheerful and jovial young man, who, although he was sometimes too easily annoyed when he received critiques, never stopped trying to build strong relationships with the comrades. He cared about them and helped them in all the ways he could, searching with them for confrontation and dialogue. He was also a good cook. In education we have shifts to prepare food. So, one time we ended up cooking for lunch together, preparing a Kurdish dish that was totally new to me. With his good soul and despite my rickety Kurdish, heval Berxwedan was very committed to make me understand the recipe. Another time, always talking mostly by gestures, he taught me how to prepare “çai”, the tea that is never missing among Kurds. For heval Berxwedan was very important that the “internationalist comrade” learned how to prepare it perfectly.
For heval Berxwedan, the education period has been a moment of great change and of proof of will strength and spirit. Despite many difficulties, the long lessons, the critiques and self-critiques, he finished the education successfully. Since the first day of education to the last one he fought with tenacity against himself to change his personality and to prepare to become an Apoist militant. I’m sure that he continued his struggle with courage and determination until the end. In fact, you could have read in his honest eyes the desire to return to his land to fight as a young guerilla of the movement and as the vanguard of the revolution. Heval Berxwedan Çiyager lead his struggle following the Apoist line until the extreme sacrifice of martyrdom.
Every day, it’s a duty to collect the legacy of those who gave their life for building of free and democratic life and to walk on their path. It’s necessary to fight with more and more strength and to strengthen the struggle to honour the memory of Şehîd Berxwedan Çiyager and of all the martyrs that fell for the freedom and autonomy of Kurdish people and of all the peoples in Earth. Only this way, martyrs’ sacrifice gets meaning and the resistance and the struggle for democracy and freedom will be able to triumph.
Martyrs are the light of our path. Şehîd namirin, şehîd namirin, şehîd namirin!
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