Mazlum Doğan (born 1956, Seydan, Tunceli Province – died 21 March 1982, Diyarbakır, Turkey) was a journalist and a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. He was a Kurdish Alevi. He was the first chief editor of the party's newspaper Serxwebûn. In 1979, he had planned to leave Turkey towards Syria, but was arrested and served time in the infamous Diyarbakir No. 5 prison. Mazlum Doğan committed suicide in protest of the Turkish coup d'état and the inhumane conditions he and other prisoners were facing inside of the penitentiary. Today he is seen as a hero and a martyr for the Kurdish resistance movement.
Early life
Mazlum was raised by his mother, Kebire, and his father, Kazim Doğan, in the village of Seydan village in the Mazgirt, Tunceli Province of Turkey. He had three older sisters, Arife, Asiye ( Serap) and Nezaket and two brothers Fevzi and Delil. Delil was killed by special operation teams on 7 October 1980.
Education
Doğan began his high school studies in Eskişehir & Karakoçan and Dersim & Balıkesir. After successfully passing the entrance exams, he enrolled at the prestigious University of Hacettepe in Ankara, Department of Economics, in 1974. While studying at university, he met other young Kurds who familiarized him with politics. He developed a passion for reading. Those who knew him well have said that he would read up to five-hundred pages or more a day. Through his readings, he became informed on oppression against Kurds. Determined to fight discrimination even if it meant with his own life, Doğan left the university in 1976 and went back to the Kurdish region to organize politically. There he joined the Kurdish student movement, which was the precursor of the Kurdistan Workers' Party.