Enforced disappearance faces the expiry of statutory limitations in Turkey

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Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) İstanbul MP and Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights' Deputy Chair Sezgin Tanrıkulu has released a report on the occasion of August 30 International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Recalling that "enforced disappearance" became a part of the public agenda of Turkey in the 1990s, Tanrıkulu has said that thousands of people were disappeared back then in the name of "counterterrorism."

Details of the report

Some highlights from the report are as follows:

"As in the case of a mass grave found in Mardin's Dargeçit in 2020 or the finding of Hasan Ocak's dead body in the 90s, some traces were found afterwards; but impunity and the problem of not being able to get information face us with their all gravity in enforced disappearances.

"The fate and whereabouts of Gülistan Doku are still unknown. There are allegations that the law enforcement is making efforts to cover it up.

"Yusuf Bilge Tunç, a former expert at the Ministry of Industry, has been missing since August 6, 2019; Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit, a former rapporteur to the PM, has been missing since December 29, 2020."

Tanrıkulu has also noted that "in 2021, enforced disappearances/ abductions came to the agenda with two incidents":

"In İstanbul, electrician Gökhan Güneş 'disappeared' for six days after he left his home on January 20 to go to work... His relatives and attorneys shared the footage of the moment of his abduction with the public.

"Güneş showed up six days later. In a statement that he made later on, Gçkhan Güneş said that 'he had been abducted in that period, severely tortured, offered to work as an agent and one morning, he was left on a roadside in Başakşehir with his eyes blindfolded.'

"On February 18, 2021, three young people, one from the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) and two from the University Student Collectives, were abducted in Ankara and disappeared for hours. Released later on, they announced that 'they were forced to get in a vehicle by civilian people who introduced themselves as police and held in the vehicle underway for hours'."

Impunity

In his report, CHP's Tanrıkulu has also raised concerns about the impunity following human rights abuses in Turkey, especially the enforced disappearances. The MP has summarized it as follows:

• Covering up the incidents of enforced disappearance/ abduction
• Not putting the perpetrators on trial

Referring to the data of the Truth Justice Memory Center, he has noted that domestic remedies do not give any results because of these reasons:

"Public prosecutors do not undertake investigative proceedings as required; no effective investigation that would bring the truth into light is conducted.

"Investigations are impeded for years or the files are closed by giving decisions of non-prosecution.

"Even though enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity and not subjected to the expiry of statute of limitations; in Turkey, such incidents still face the risk of the expiry of statutory limitations.

"A court case is filed in a very few incidents; the judicial proceedings end in acquittal most of the time."

The number of incidents of enforced disappearance by years according to the data of the Truth Justice Memory Center:

Requests

Concluding the report, the MP has called on the state to open its archives to find out the fate and whereabouts of the enforced disappeared and to find the perpetrators of enforced disappearances.

Urging the government to sign the international convention on enforced disappearances and to fulfill its obligations, the MP has also demanded that the judiciary abandon the systematic policy of impunity, undertake effective judicial proceedings into enforced disappearances and not take statutory limitations into account as required by international conventions.

Tanrıkulu has also requested that a "Commission to Face the Past and Inquire the Truth" be established "so that no such sorrows will be experienced in this land again, the truth will be brought to light and social peace will be ensured." (RT/SD)