Fatih Altaylı's remarks on Yılmaz Güney: You don't become a murderer when you're Turkish and a prisoner of conscience when you're Kurdish!
Journalist Fatih Altaylı evaluated the debates surrounding Yılmaz Güney, which resurfaced on the anniversary of his death.
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Journalist Fatih Altaylı reacted to those who attribute the criticisms regarding violence against women and murder directed at director and actor Yılmaz Güney to his Kurdish identity. Altaylı commented, "If you kill someone you argued with at a nightclub, it doesn't matter if you are Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese, or Ugandan. You are a murderer."
Altaylı interpreted the debates that began regarding Yılmaz Güney on the anniversary of his death as follows:
"If you have been imprisoned because you committed murder, not because of your ideas, you do not become a murderer when you are Turkish and a prisoner of conscience when you are Kurdish. Being Japanese or Ugandan does not change the situation either.
On the contrary, in such cases, if you handle the issue differently based on ethnicity or race, you are being racist.
For years, İbrahim Tatlıses's attitude toward women, the fact that a person arguing with him was immediately shot and killed by one of his associates, and the fact that the women he separated from were shot at different times have led to criticism of Tatlıses. Tatlıses is also Kurdish. Are those who criticize him 'anti-Kurdish' too!
Then why is criticizing Yılmaz Güney when he commits similar or even worse crimes linked to being Kurdish!"