Europe-based Alevi associations issued a joint press statement in Cologne yesterday concerning the statement by Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Onur Öymen, Today’s Zaman reports. Öymen called a 1937 rebellion in the Alevi town of Tunceli depicting a massacre in which 90,000 were killed an anti-terror campaign.

“In the statement, the groups said that they would apply to the Socialist International (SI) for the CHP’s exemption from the organization,” the daily reads. “The CHP is an obstacle in the path of democratization,” the statement said.

According to the daily, Alevi associations’ leaders “noted that Öymen had extended a ‘half-hearted’ apology, which they did not find sincere.” “Onur Öymen, who has praised the Dersim massacre, should step down as a member of Parliament. Öymen’s crime is not one committed against the people of Dersim and the Alevi community alone, but one against humanity,” Zaman quotes the statement.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinc also criticized Öymen for his statements. “Onur Öymen’s words mean only one thing. ‘Bloodshed should continue, and if mothers cry, let them cry. Because that is what happened in Dersim. This is what we did then, and we want to do the same thing today.’ This is what he said in plain Turkish; there is no need to embellish this in diplomatic language. We now need to see how people with conscience will stand in the face of this,” Arinc said.