Background
Vedat Demircioğlu was born on 5 March 1943 in Taşkent, Konya. He was a member of the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP). In the summer of 1968 he enrolled in a course at the İTÜ Motor Institute, so he sometimes stayed at the İstanbul Technical University dormitory in Gümüşsuyu. Some accounts describe him as a law student; sources differ on this.
July 1968 was a period of demonstrations against the arrival of the US Sixth Fleet in Istanbul. Students and youth organisations were protesting the fleet’s presence.
What happened
On 17 July 1968 police raided the İTÜ Gümüşsuyu dormitory. During the raid Demircioğlu fell from an upper floor. Most sources say the second floor, others the third. Police records said he jumped out of the window, while his friends and later accounts say he was thrown by police.
He was taken to Taksim First Aid Hospital, remained in a coma for a week and died on 24 July 1968. A few sources give the date as 25 July; most use 24 July.
A funeral with a symbolic coffin was held on 25 July, attended by about five thousand people. His fellow students’ request for his body was refused. The raid had become possible after the university rector said the dormitory was not counted as a university building.
Why it is still debated
No court ruling holds anyone responsible for Demircioğlu’s death. In public memory he is remembered as the first death of Turkey’s ’68 generation.
Details of the incident are still not fully settled, with sources differing on the date, the floor and his university affiliation, so small differences appear between commemorative texts and historical accounts.