Newroz, Kawa the Blacksmith and Mazlum Doğan

The legend of Kawa the Blacksmith is thousands of years old. Kawa is the symbol of Newroz and Mazlum Doğan is the modern Kawa.

A blacksmith called Kawa lived in a city ruled by an evil tyrant, Dehak.

Dehak was ill and a doctor told him the only cure was to eat, twice a day, the fresh brains of two children.

The tyrant carried out daily murders across the city until one day Kawa devised a plan. Working tirelessly at his furnace, he cast enough swords for an uprising.

In the mountains outside the city, the blacksmith gathered all their youths and armed them with weapons. After Kawa’s signal — by lighting a fire — they attacked the evil king’s palace and burnt it down.

Mazlum Doğan, the modern Kawa

On 21 March 1982, the day, Kurds celebrate Newroz by lighting up bonfires. Mazlum Doğan ended his life in order to protest against the brutality of the Turkish government.

With this act, he tried to raise awareness about the inhumane conditions at Diyarbakır Prison and other jails in Turkey during the 1980 Turkish coup d’état.

Mazlum Doğan is considered a modern Kawa. He was the first chief editor of the party’ newspaper, Serxwebûn.

Mazlum Doğan was born in 1955 in Karakoçan/Elâzığ Province.

He was a member of the Central Committee of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK. He was a Kurdish Alevi.

After he finished high school in Elazığ in 1974 he enrolled at Hacettepe University in Ankara at the Department of Economics.

In 1976 he left the University and joined the students movement where he came in contact with many leftist students who would soon found the PKK.

In 1979 he planned leaving Turkey towards Syria, but was arrested over accusations of founding and leading a terrorist organisation, taking part in the liberation of a comrade from a state hospital in Diyarbakır and identity document forgery.