Large Alevi protest in Ankara sees tension

Some demonstrators were pepper sprayed by police officers for refusing to be frisked as they entered Sıhhiye Square. There was a brief clash between protesters and the police when the crowds started pushing past the police barricade at the entrance. The Cihan news agency reported that those who clashed with the police at the entry checkpoints were from the Socialist Platform of the Oppressed (ESP) and a marginal group called Partisan. Cihan reported that these groups threw objects at the police. One protester was detained while three police officers were injured in the incidents.

The rally, called the “Laik ve Demokratik Türkiye İçin Eşit Yurttaşlık Mitingi” (Equal citizenship demonstration for a secular and democratic Turkey), started in the morning, with Alevi protesters meeting at the Ankara train station and proceeding towards Sıhhiye at about 10:30 a.m. The protesters chanted slogans calling for justice in the Sivas massacre of 1993 in which 35 Alevis died, abolishing compulsory religion classes, giving Alevi houses of worship (cemevi) equal status as mosques as well as anti-war protests over Syria while voicing support for the people of Syria.

In addition to the ESP and Partisan, the rally was attended by other civil and political organizations, including the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), the Turkish Communist Party (TKP), the Halkevleri Association, the People's Liberation Party (HKP) and many others.

The groups also protested what they claimed was a weak investigation into recent incidents where the houses of Alevi residents were marked with red dye in several cities.

A Republican People's Party (CHP) bus led the crowds as they marched from the train station to Sıhhiye. There were also drums being played by Beşiktaş football club's fan club Çarşı and a snare drum team called Kızıldavul (Red drum).

In 2010, the government held seven workshops spread over a six-month period which took place with the participation of 400 academics, theologians, members of civil society groups, politicians, journalists and Alevi and Bektaşi representatives.

However, a number of groups protested against the government, accusing the authorities of attempting to “Sunnify” the country's Alevis.

The history of Alevis under the Ottoman Empire has yet to be resolved thoroughly but the relationship between the Sunni and Alevi communities in Anatolia was troubled from the start. In 1511, the Ottoman army brutally suppressed a revolt by the Kızılbaş (crimson head) Turkmens of the Alevi faith on Anatolian soil and as many as 40,000 were killed. The battle of Çaldıran, fought between the Ottoman Empire under Yavuz Sultan Selim and Safavid ruler Ismail in 1514, resulted in the sultan issuing an edict to kill all the Kızılbaş in the region.

The centuries that followed were also troubled, but not as brutal. In fact, the Ottoman Empire's troops -- called the janissaries -- were recruited exclusively from Bektaşi lodges. What remains difficult to assert is the extent of persecution of the Alevis in the republican era. Hundreds of Alevis were killed in pogroms, which many now believe were masterminded by shady groups inside the state, in the cities of Çorum, Yozgat and Kahramanmaraş in the 1970s. Thirty-four Alevi artists were burned to death in 1992 inside the Madımak Hotel in Sivas. There were other incidents, such as the one in the Alevi neighborhood of Gazi in İstanbul in 1995, where Alevis were targeted by individuals armed with machine guns.