Commemoration of Suruç Massacre in İstanbul: Several detained amid calls for justice
Photo: ETHA
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Commemorations were held across various cities in the country yesterday for the 33 people who lost their lives in the suicide bombing carried out by ISIS in Suruç, a border town in Urfa, southeastern Turkey, back in 2015.
The attack had occurred during an event organized to deliver toys to children in Kobanî, a Kurdish city on the Syrian side of the border that had endured ISIS attacks for a long time. More than a hundred people were also injured in the bombing.
In İstanbul's Kadıköy district, a commemoration event was attended by the families of the deceased and injured, as well as the Saturday Mothers, various political groups, and MPs from the Green Left Party and the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP).
During the event, a banner reading "Let our hearts beat for justice" was unveiled, adorned with a Circassian flag, rainbow flag, and scarves and jerseys from Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor football teams, in memory of those who lost their lives in the explosion.
Before the event, there was a heavy police presence in Kadıköy. After the gathering, as people dispersed, the police surrounded the group and detained some individuals, including a journalist.
"Our grief is immense, but our anger is even greater"
The event began with a moment of silence for the victims, followed by a speech from Birkan Polat, representing the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF), the group that had organized the 2015 event. Polat stated, "Our grief is immense, but our anger is even greater."
He emphasized that for the past eight years, the Suruç trial has been like a "mise-en-scène", and no effective prosecution has taken place. He added, "We know who killed our comrades. We know who placed that bomb there. They are trying to put the Suruç families on trial. They are trying to intimidate youth organizations with all kinds of pressure, oppression, and arrests, but in vain. This [police] blockade is pointless; we are here, and we will never bow down."
"The one-man regime is built on these massacres"
Next, Çiğdem Kılıçgün-Uçar, a spokesperson for the Green Left Party, addressed the crowd, saying that the people in Suruç had wanted to show that living together was possible "by not leaving the struggle for freedom and equality only to the Kurdish people."
"The one-man regime has built itself through these massacres. Now it is trying to ensure its continuity through these massacres. The struggle shown by our 33 comrades, the resistance of those who paid every price in Kobanî, Suruç, Roboski ... and who have never given up on the struggle for justice since that day ... guide us. We promise to magnify their struggle."
"They want us to forget this massacre"
Sera Kadıgil, the spokesperson and member of parliament for the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP), also criticized the police blockade and reminded the crowd that six young people distributing leaflets for the Suruç commemoration were recently arrested. She stated, "They want us to forget the massacre that was carried out right before our eyes. They want us not to seek justice. They don't want us to know why they did all this."
Representing the Suruç Families Initiative, Ezgi Gürbüz delivered a statement, saying that they have been seeking justice for 8 years, but no progress has been made in court despite all the evidence.
"Unresolved massacres paved the way for new ones"
Gürbüz recalled that the perpetrator, Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz, was interrogated twice by the police just hours before the massacre, and despite being reported by the families of the attackers, no precautions were taken. The state authorities did not take any responsibility, and Kasım Güler, an ISIS member, confessed in 2015 that crossing the border was very easy, she added.
Gürbüz also recalled bombings at the Diyarbakır HDP rally and the Ankara Railway Station in 2015, where more than 100 people lost their lives, and emphasized that unresolved massacres pave the way for new ones.
"We know that the courtroom is not the place where justice will be served for us. It is the conscience of our people," Gürbüz stated.
After the statement, the crowd sat in protest, and the police intervened. They formed a circle around the protesters and pushed the press members away from the scene, preventing them from taking any footage. During this time, Umut Taştan, a reporter for Artı TV who was covering the event, was handcuffed and taken into custody.
The DİSK Basın-İş (Press-Work) Union protested the detention of the journalist, stating that preventing journalists from performing their duties through detention reveals the extent of the injustice. They demanded that their member be immediately released.
The bombing and the trialUpon the call of the Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF), around 300 young people came together in Suruç in Turkey's southeastern province of Urfa on July 20, 2015. They were there to bring toys and humanitarian aid to the Kurdish town of Kobanî in northern Syria. While they were in front of the Amara Cultural Center for a statement for the press, a suicide bomb attack was carried out. Thirty-three people lost their lives and more than 100 were wounded. ISIS operative Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz was identified to have carried out the bomb attack. A confidentiality order was imposed on the file on July 23, 2015 because "the examination of the documents in the file would jeopardize the purpose of the investigation." Filed by the Şanlıurfa Chief Public Prosecutor's Office 18 months after the massacre, the indictment demanded that three defendants, one of whom was arrested, be given life sentences aggravated for 104 times each. Yakup Şahin, one of the defendants, was arrested as a suspect. According to the indictment, Deniz Büyükçelebi and İlhami Ballı, the other two defendants, were in Syria. The lawsuit filed into the Suruç Massacre started 21 months after the incident at the Şanlıurfa 5th Heavy Penal Court on May 4, 2017. The only defendant of the case who was not a fugitive did not attend the hearing. In the final hearing of the case filed against the public officials on January 9, 2017, Mehmet Yapalıal, the then district security director of Suruç, was fined 7,500 lira for "neglect of duty and misconduct in office." The court ruled that he shall pay the fine in 12 installments. On October 22, 2021, the only defendant under arrest was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment 34 times, as well as 1,890 years in prison. |
(HA/VK)
