‘End denial and impunity, stop criminalizing the enforced disappeared’

* Photo: Mezopotamya Agency (MA)

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Human Rights Association (İHD) İstanbul Branch and the Ocak family held a press statement regarding the remarks of President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu about Hasan Ocak yesterday (January 20).

Taken into custody on March 21, 1995, Hasan Ocak's tortured dead body was found in a cemetery of the nameless.

Over the past weeks, main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) İstanbul Chair Canan Kaftancıoğlu has been targeted over her previous social media posts about Ocak. Amid ongoing protests at Boğaziçi University, Erdoğan said, "Students are not involved in this, terrorists are. The İstanbul Provincial Chair is there, she is already a militant of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C)."

Shortly afterwards, Minister Soylu also tweeted, "Canan Kaftancıoğlu is the clown of terrorist organizations," accusing her being a member of the DHKP/C, Kurdistan Workers' Party/ Kurdistan Communities Union (PKK/KCK) and Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP).

Saying that she was sentenced to 1 year, 8 months in prison for "propagandizing for the DHKP/C and PKK/KCK", Soylu mentioned her name together with "the so-called founding leader of the MLKP Hasan Ocak, one of the founders of Sakine Cansız and DHKP/C's Ebru Timtik", an arrested lawyer who lost her life on a death fast for a fair trial last year.

CLICK - Social Memory Platform denounces Erdoğan's accusations against CHP İstanbul Chair

'Canan Kaftancıoğlu turned into a target'

The family of Hasan Ocak and rights defenders denounced the remarks of Erdoğan and Soylu in a press statement at the İHD İstanbul office.

Reading out the statement on behalf of human rights defenders, Sebla Arcan said, "We feel the need to make this statement due to the ongoing black propaganda about Hasan Ocak and Canan Kaftancıoğlu.

"The fundamental principles of the law have been recently trampled upon by bringing Hasan Ocak under suspicion with the aim of creating a certain public perception and getting a political result out of this.

"Pro-government media outlets have also been broadcasting in such a way to bring Hasan Ocak under criminal suspicion.

"This attitude aims to intimidate and slander the struggle against enforced disappearances and the ones supporting this struggle in the person of Canan Kaftancıoğlu. It is also obvious that the Ocak Family and Canan Kaftancıoğlu are turned into open targets with their life safety put at risk.

'Meet the demand for justice'

"We underline that there is no court verdict indicating that Hasan Ocak was the member of any organization. The state officials of the time also stated that he was not a wanted person.

"We would like to remind the ones who want to cast a shadow on families' struggle for truth and justice with slanders: No reason can be put forward to legitimize enforced disappearance, even at war. No one, without any exceptions, can be subjected to enforced disappearance.

"We would like to, once again, call out to the ones who govern the country: According to the international law, enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity, regardless of whom it targets.

"End denial, impunity and black propaganda. Stop criminalizing our losses and our legitimate search for justice."

Concluding her remarks,  Sebla Arcan referred to the Saturday Mothers/ People, who have been demanding justice for their enforced disappeared relatives since the 1990s, but have been prevented from protesting in Galatasaray Square in Taksim, İstanbul for over two years now: "Meet the demands of society and Saturday Mothers for justice."

What happened to Hasan Ocak?

As shared by the Human Rights Association (İHD) with the public in its statement, Hasan Ocak was a teacher, who was known for his socialist and dissident identity. He was waiting for his appointment so that he could work as a teacher at a public school. While he was waiting for this, he was also managing a tea house in Beyazıt, İstanbul.

He used to live with his family in Avcılar district. After the Gazi Massacre, Ocak left the tea house for home on March 21, 1995; his fate and whereabouts were unknown after that.

There were several witnesses saying that he was interrogated at the İstanbul Security Directorate's Counterterrorism Branch, but it was denied by the authorities that he had been detained.

His family was faced with denial by all state authorities that they turned to. Though Ocak's severely tortured body was found by the gendarmerie officers at the outskirts of the Anatolian side of İstanbul on March 26, 1995, it was reported to the Beykoz Prosecutor's Office and his body was kept at the Forensic Medicine Institution for days, the applications of the family to the related institutions remained inconclusive.

After a search for 58 days, it was understood that Hasan Ocak's deceased body, without informing his family, was buried in the Altınşehir Cemetery of the Nameless as an "unidentified" person.

After some time, Algan Hacaloğlu went to the house of Ocak family with his wife and apologized to Emine Ocak on behalf of the state, saying, "Even though I launched an investigation as the State Minister responsible for human rights, I detected that the truth had been concealed from me." (EMK/SD)