Helin Bölek

Helin Bölek — Biography

Helin Bölek was born on 5 June 1991 in Diyarbakır, the daughter of a Kurdish family from Diyarbakır. In her youth she worked in the arts and became the lead vocalist of Grup Yorum, a leftist folk music group founded by students in Istanbul in 1985 in response to the 1980 military coup. In November 2016 she was detained and then arrested during a police operation at the İdil Culture Center in Istanbul, together with other members of the group.

Group members announced an indefinite hunger strike on 17 May 2019 to end the concert bans, the raids on their cultural centre and the pressure on them. Bölek joined the action in June 2019. Among the demands were the release of the jailed musicians and the freedom to perform the group's banned songs again. She was released in November 2019 but kept fasting. On 11 March 2020, after a police raid on their home in Küçük Armutlu, she and İbrahim Gökçek, who was taking part in the same action, were taken to hospital; both stated that they did not accept treatment.

Bölek died in Istanbul on 3 April 2020, the 288th day of the hunger strike. Mourners wanted her coffin taken to the Okmeydanı Cemevi; police intervened, and she was buried at Feriköy Cemetery. Her death drew wide coverage in Turkey and abroad.