Tahir Elçi (1966, Cizre – November 28, 2015, Diyarbakır) was a Kurdish lawyer and the chairman of Diyarbakır Bar Association. He was killed in the Sur district of Diyarbakir in the southeastern region of Turkey on 28 November 2015. He was shot once in the head while giving a press statement at the "Four-legged Minaret" of Sheikh Matar Mosque[1] calling for an end to violence. Elçi was detained several times and received death threats after saying the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) should not be regarded as a terrorist organization. In October 2015, Elçi was detained by Turkish authorities on charges of disseminating "terrorist propaganda" on behalf of the PKK.
[1] Sheikh Matar Mosque or Sheikh Mutahhar Mosque (Turkish: Şeyh Matar Camii or Şeyh Mutahhar Camii) is a historical mosque in Diyarbakır, Turkey, best known for its unique minaret based on four columns, dubbed the Four-legged Minaret (Turkish: Dört Ayaklı Minare). The mosque is situated in the Yenikapı Street of Savaş neighborhood at Diyarbakır's walled historical district of Sur. The mosque is named after Sheikh Matar (Mutahhar) as it is believed that the mosque's estate covering 600 m2 (6,500 sq ft) contains the grave of the sheikh. In the "Diyarbakır Salnâmeleri" (Yearbooks of Diyarbakır), it is recorded that the tower was built in 906 as a stable and high structure, and was converted into a minaret with the construction of the mosque next to it after the conquest of the region by Islamic people. Today, local people construe that the four columns at the minaret's base symbolize the four main denominations of Sunni Islam , namely Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi'i
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