Beytocan

About Beytocan

Beytocan was a Kurdish singer, composer and songwriter from Silvan (Farqîn) in Diyarbakır Province, whose songs carried the experience of prison and exile. He was born Beytullah Güneri in 1955 and grew up in Silvan and Diyarbakır, writing poems and songs in Kurmanji.

After the military coup of 12 September 1980 he was arrested and given a long prison sentence, and he was released in 1987. In the years when Kurdish recordings were banned in Turkey, his song Yan Mirin Yan Diyarbekir ('Either Death or Diyarbakır'), from the album 21ê Adarê (Bîst û Yekê Adarê), was itself banned. In the early 1990s he left Turkey for political reasons and settled in Stockholm, Sweden, where he spent most of the rest of his life. His albums include Te Nadin Min, Bîst û Yekê Adarê and Etûna Dilê Min.

Beytocan is also remembered for a long copyright dispute over the song Rinda Min. He argued that İbrahim Tatlıses had recorded his composition Agir Ketiye Dilê Min under a new title without permission, and in September 2016, after around fifteen years in the courts, an Istanbul intellectual property court ordered Tatlıses to pay him compensation. The case drew attention to how often Kurdish songs are treated as anonymous folk material when they have known authors.

In his last years he was treated for cancer and withdrew from the stage. He died in Stockholm on 12 September 2023 and, as he had wished, was buried in Sweden; mourners also gathered in Diyarbakır.

→ Browse all Kurmanji Kurdish notation