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The home of an Alevi family was stoned and their stables burned down by an angry mob yesterday after the family allegedly told a Ramadan drummer not to wake them for sahur, the meal before sunrise.
Members of the Alevi family in the Surgu village of the southeastern Malatya province allegedly asked a Ramadan drummer not to drum in front of their home the night of July 28 as they were not fasting and had work early in the morning. The two sides quarreled after the drummer rejected the family’s request.
News of the incident was heard throughout the village and a mob of around 60 people gathered in front of the Alevi family’s house yesterday. The group hurled stones at the family’s home and said the family members were “Kurds.” The small contingent of gendarmerie soldiers in the villlage was unable to contain the crowd so reinforcements were called in from the Dogansehir district.
The group reportedly chanted slogans, yelled “Allahu akber,” meaning God is great, sang the Turkish national anthem and said “this family will leave this place.” Family members turned off their lights and hid in their homes in terror. The group also set a stable belonging to the family on fire, which prompted the gendarmerie to fire shots into the air.
Security forces were able to disperse the crowd after reinforcements arrived.
Hasan Alevi, whose home was attacked, said his family had wanted to live in peace together. “We do not want such incidents, we have never hurt anyone,” he said.
His wife, Leyla showed journalists the stones hurled at her home by the mob. “They came to lynch us. They shouted ‘death to Kurds.’ They told us to leave and threatened to kill us if we did not,” she said.
Calm was restored in Surgu after gendarmerie forces took measures in the village to increase security and placed officers on patrol around the Alevi family’s house today.
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