‘His dead body was sent by cargo’

* Photo: MA

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The Unity and Culture Association for Aiding and Solidarizing with Families Who Lost Their Relatives in the Cradle of Civilizations (MEBYA-DER) released its 2020 annual report in a press statement in front of the Human Rights Monument in the Koşuyolu Park in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Diyarbakır today (December 31).

Addressing the reporters, MEBYA-DER Co-Chair Yüksel Almas has said that 2020 was an extremely difficult year for all peoples of the world.

Noting that violations of rights have peaked over the past year, Yüksel Almas has underlined that the war has deepened, the economy has collapsed and social decay has accelerated in this period.

As reported by the Mezopotamya Agency (MA), the press statement was also attended by Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır MPs Semra Güzel and Remziye Tosun as well as members of the HDP, Free Women's Movement/ Tevgera Jinen Azad (TJA) and Diyarbakır Association of Solidarity with Arrestees' Families (TUAY-DER).

'Seven families couldn't receive dead bodies'

According to Almas, 84 families have applied to the association in the last year on the grounds that they lost their relatives in different conflicts; 32 of these families could receive the dead bodies of their relatives. However, seven families were reportedly not given the deceased bodies of their relatives even though they fulfilled all requirements and their DNAs matched.

Association Chair Almas has emphasized that this situation has turned into a systematic torture for families. She has also indicated that the graves of People's Defense Forces (HPG) members in the villages of Sağlık, Kureşa, Şanlı and Mir Ali in Silvan district in Diyarbakır were demolished by law enforcement officers on April 24, 2020.

'We will stand with aggrieved families'

Almas has indicated that the dead body of Agit İpek, who dies in a conflict in Dersim in 2017, was sent to his mother in a plastic box by cargo in May 2020. Referring to this incident, Almas has noted that, in this incident, which caused public indignation, the state institutions acted in a mindset of systematic torture during identification, burial and condolences.

Calling on the government to step back from these unlawful acts and to stop the attacks on dead bodies, Almas has emphasized that they will be on the side of aggrieved families and keep struggling under any circumstances. (AS/SD)