99th Anniversary of Sheikh Saeed Piran's Murder

[Anthea]

99th anniversary of Sheikh Saeed Piran murder
Along with dozens of his companions

A summary of Sheikh Saeed Piran’s life

Saeed bin Sheikh Mahmoud bin Sheikh Ali, born in Palo town in 1865, in Turkish occupied Kurdistan. He received his initial education at the hands of his father, Sheikh Mahmoud, learning to memorize the Qur’an and the principles of reading and writing, then he studied jurisprudence and Islamic law.

After he completed his studies, he became a well-known religious scholar, and religious leadership passed to him after his father’s death, and he became a guide to the order in Palo.

Sheikh Saeed practiced political activity since the founding of Kurdish associations and organizations between the years 1908 - 1923, and he had close ties with national families, such as the Badirkhan Bag family and the Sheikh Ubaidullah Al-Nahri family, in addition to the Kurdish leaders’ contemporary to him.

After the arrest of some leaders of the Azadi Association (Khaled Gibran and Youssef Zia) in 1924, the association held a conference in the city of Aleppo, Syria, and Sheikh Saeed was chosen as president of the association, and they decided to launch a comprehensive uprising to gain Kurdish national rights.

The start of the uprising was set on the Kurdish National Holiday (Newroz), March 21, 1925, and Sheikh Saeed toured Turkish occupied Kurdistan to gain support for the uprising.

Sheikh Saeed's arrival in the village of Piran, accompanied by 100 freedom fighters, coincided with the arrival of a Turkish detachment that came to arrest some Kurds, and an armed clash occurred between the forces of the detachment and the Sheikh's men. Some Turkish soldiers were killed and others were arrested.

When the news of this incident spread, many Kurdish leaders thought that Sheikh Saeed had declared an uprising, so they attacked the Turkish forces. And Sheikh Abdul Rahim, Sheikh Saeed’s brother, took control of the city of “Gainj”, which was chosen as the temporary capital of Northern Kurdistan.

The uprising spread very quickly, and for a short period, the revolutionaries controlled the lands of most of Northern Kurdistan (14 states), as the number of Kurds rising up reached about 600 thousand, along with about 100 thousand Circassians, Arabs, Armenians, and Assyrians

The freedom fighters imposed a siege on the city of “Amed” until the arrival of Turkish forces reinforced with heavy weapons. The freedom fighters were unable to control the city despite their storming of it, so Sheikh Saeed ordered his forces to retreat.

Turkish forces surrounded the rebels and prevented them from entering Iraqi Kurdistan, Syrian Kurdistan, and Iranian Kurdistan.

Sheikh Saeed Piran was invited for talks with Turkish leaders who promptly arrested he along with a number of leaders of the uprising.

During a mock trial, the death sentence was issued against 49 leaders and activists, including Sheikh Saeed Piran