Journalist
and writer (b. 1888, Thessalonica / Greece (Selanik / Ottoman Empire) - d. 15 May 1919 İzmir). His real
name was Osman Nevreş. He graduated from Thessalonica Fevziye High School and
later on from University of Paris, Faculty of Law. He joined the members of
Committee of Union and Progress (1908) and was employed at Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa
(The National Intelligence Organization of the time). He carried out a bomb
assassination on two English diplomats who were engaged in espionage in the
Balkans during World War I. He was arrested and sentenced to ten years in
prison in Bucharest. He was acquitted after a year on the intervention of Hilmi
Paşa.
During the years of
armistice, he settled in İzmir and published the journal Hukuk-i Beşer
(1918-19). With the intellectuals around him he published the manifesto “Redd-i
İlhak” (The Rejection of Annexation) against the Greek invasion. He was the
first to open fire on the Greek soldiers that landed on the coast of İzmir and
he killed the flagman of the Efzun regiment. He was killed on the spot by Greek
soldiers and thus became a martyr. In his memory, “The First Bullet Monument”
was erected in Konak Square in 1973. Since 1998, the İzmir Journalists
Association has given awards in his name.
