Gazi Quarter riots
The 1995 Gazi Quarter riots () or 1995 Gazi Massacre () were events that occurred in March 1995 at the Gazi Quarter, a working-class neighborhood in the then Gaziosmanpaşa district, today Sultangazi district, of Istanbul, Turkey, where mostly Alevis live. The riots began after drive-by shootings on several cafés at the same time, and spread over other places in Istanbul and also in Ankara in the next days. During the four-day unrest, 23 people were killed and more than 1,400 rioters and police were injured. Background In the evening hours of March 12, 1995, three cafés and a cake shop were attacked at the same time with automatic rifles, fired by anonymous people from a passing taxicab. As a result of the attack, Dede Halil Kaya, a 61-year-old Alevi religious leader, was killed and 25 people were injured, five of them severely. The gunmen escaped unidentified after having murdered the cab driver by cutting his throat, and set the hijacked cab on fire. Unrest The attacks triggered chaotic events. Right after the attack, a great number of Alevi residents of the Gazi Quarter gathered in front of the cemevi, and marched to the neighborhood's police station. One of the protesters,