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Massacres of Diyarbakir massacres that took place in the Diyarbekir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire between the years of 1894 and 1896. The events were part of the Hamidian massacres and targeted the vilayet's Christian population – Armenians and Assyrians. The massacres were initially directed at Armenians, instigated by Ottoman politicians and clerics under the pretext of their desire to dismantle the state, but they soon changed into a general anti-Christians pogrom as the killing moved to the Diyarbekir Vilayet and surrounding areas of Tur Abdin, which was inhabited by Assyrian/Syriac Christians. Contemporary accounts put the total number of Assyrians killed between 1894–96 at around 25,000.〔 == Background == Kurdish raids on villages in the Diyarbekir Vilayet intensified in the years following a famine that ravaged the region. This was followed by fierce battles between Kurds and Shammar Arabs. In August 1888, Kurdish Aghas led attacks on Assyrian villages in Tur Abdin killing 18. Requests for an investigation by Patriarch Ignatius Peter IV went unanswered by the Porte. Another Kurdish raid in October 1889 targeted several Assyrian/Syriac villages during which 40 villagers including women and children were killed. These events were the first signs of the massacres that would characterise the Diyarbekir Vilayet for the following decade. The Hamidian massacres came when some 4,000 Armenians in the Sasun district of Bitlis Vilayet in 1894 rebelled against Kurdish nomadic tribes, who demanded traditional taxes from them. Local authorities reported this to the Sultan as a major revolt. The Sultan responded by sending the Ottoman army supported by the Hamidiye cavalry and local Kurdish tribes. After clashing with the Armenian rebels, the Kurds descended upon Armenian villages in the regions of Sasun (Sassoun) and Talori, between Muş and Silvan, massacring its inhabitants and burning several Christian villages. More than 7,500 Armenians died as a result, and an intervention by European powers lead to the dismissal of the Governor of Bitlis, Bahri Paşa, in January 1895. Three European Powers - Britain, France and Russia - thinking that reform of the Ottoman local government would help to prevent violence as occurred in Sasun, proposed to Sultan Abdul Hamid II a reform plan, planning control of the Kurds and the employment of Christian assistant-governors. The Sultan was unwilling to yield to the desires of the Powers. During the Spring and Summer of 1895 months of unfruitful negotiations passed. After a demonstration in Constantinople on September 30, 1895, organised by the Armenian Hunchakian Party to ask for speedy enactment of the reforms, Christian neighbourhoods in the city were attacked by angry Muslim mobs and the city descended into chaos. The massacre in Constantinople was followed by more Muslim-Armenian conflict in other areas, always costing the lives of vastly more Christians than Muslims.〔Selim Deringil. "The Armenian Question Is Finally Closed": Mass Conversions of Armenians in Anatolia during the Hamidian Massacres of 1895–1897, p351-352, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2009;51(2). Quote: "In Trabzon on 13 September 1895, the Muslim dead numbered eleven whereas the Armenians lost 182. In Erzurum on 23 October the ratio was five Muslim dead to fifty Armenians. In Bitlis, on 26 October, the toll is Muslims 38 dead and 135 wounded, Armenians 132 dead and 40 wounded. In Bayburt on 4 November, against eight dead and eleven wounded on the Muslim side, 170 Armenians died and thirty-five were wounded", and footnote 38: "The sheer discrepancy in the number of Muslim and Armenian dead could not be hidden even by those official documents carefully chosen to make the Turkish case..."〕 Western pressure on the Sultan increased, and he eventually gave in to their demands and a Firman of the reforms was issued in October 1895. In retrospect, the announcement of the reforms only further exited the already heated atmosphere in the Ottoman Empire. As news of clashes and massacres spread throughout the empire Diyarbekir also took its share, with Muslim-Christian distrust reaching unprecedented levels.〔 Generally Muslims had a distorted view of what the European-inspired reforms would mean. Muslims, also in Diyarbekir, thought that an Armenian Kingdom was about to be created under protection of European Powers and the end of Islamic rule was imminent. Muslim civilians bought large amounts of weapons and ammunition. The influential Kurdish Sheikh of Zilan, who played an important role in the massacres of Armenians in Sasun and Mush in the previous year, was present in the city inciting the Muslims against Christians.〔 It was rumoured that Kurdish tribal leaders outside the town had promised to send 10,000 Kurdish fighters to avenge themselves. Muslim notables in Diyarbekir, who had lost their trust in the Sultan, telegraphed him that:〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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