On July 2, 1993, in Sivas, where the foundations of the Republic were laid, the festivities organized for Pir Sultan Abdal, one of the great poets of our folk literature, ended with a very bitter outcome, with a massacre. After the Friday prayer, Sharia supporters who started a demonstration in the city center attacked the Ozanlar Monument and the Atatürk statues. They first besieged the governorship and the cultural center, and then the Madımak Hotel where the participants of the festival stayed. The protesters, numbering 15,000, began to stone the hotel. With slogans like "Sivas will be the grave of Aziz Nesin," they set fire to the Madımak Hotel. In the massacre, known as the "bloody uprising of Sharia supporters" aiming to establish a state based on religious principles by overthrowing the secular order, 33 guests, 2 hotel staff, and 2 attackers lost their lives.
Those who attended the Pir Sultan Abdal Festival were unaware of the inhumane trap set by reactionary gangs. People who dedicated their lives to science, art, and the creation of a better world set out on the night of June 30, with folk songs, wearing festival hats, and festival T-shirts on their backs. None of them had ever considered the possibility of not returning from this journey, let alone the possibility of dying in flames.
