‘Enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity’

Click to read the article in Turkish

On the occasion of the International Week of the Enforced Disappeared (May 17-31), Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) İstanbul MP Züleyha Gülüm has submitted a Parliamentary inquiry and requested a Parliamentary investigation into enforced disappearances in Turkey.

The inquiry of the HDP MP has requested a Parliamentary investigation so that the truths about the enforced disappearances in Turkey can be brought to light, the perpetrators can be brought to justice and penalized and the incidents of enforced disappearance can be prevented.

'Over 940 people disappeared in custody'

In justifying her request for Parliamentary investigation, Züleyha Gülüm has stressed that enforced disappearance is still in place in Turkey as the policy of impunity is also still in place. She has said:

"The crime of enforced disappearance has been an inhumane method used by the states through their law enforcement agencies or the powers that they support against the political dissidents, the groups of different ethnicities and religions or the groups who are against the system.

"The victims of the crime have been deprived of legal protection on the grounds that their fate and whereabouts are not known and their existence as a legal subject cannot be proven. Most of the enforced disappearances are estimated to have been tortured and disappeared.

"The enforced disappearance of people emerged in the state of emergency conditions after the September 12, 1980 coup and it was used as a systematic state violence in the 1990s. The number of disappearances after being detained or arrested increased every year after the 1990s, especially in the Kurdish-majority provinces declared a State of Emergency site.

"While it is usually rejected by security forces that the related persons were detained, security forces are protected by policies of impunity by claiming that the disappeared were abducted by other persons.

"Even though organizations such as the Human Rights Association (İHD) and Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) record the data as to the number of enforced disappearances, there is no official data that can help us access the real number of enforced disappeared in Turkey.

"According to the latest report prepared by the İHD Commission of Enforced Disappearances, the number of people who have disappeared after being detained since the 1990s has been over 940. It is estimated that more than 4 thousand people are buried in the 253 mass graves that have been detected.

"However, considering that the relatives of all enforced disappeared people, especially those in the State of Emergency site, did not make an official application, the real number is much higher.

"Enforced disappearance is a grave crime against humanity that violates the right to life, the right to personal liberty and security and the right of the relatives of the enforced disappeared to know the truth."

Within this context, HDP MP Gülüm has requested a Parliamentary Investigation about enforced disappearances so that "Turkey can face these incidents as soon as possible, the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared can be brought to light, the uncertain process faced by the relatives of the enforced disappeared can be ended, the ones politically responsible for the disappearances can be revealed and the perpetrators can be penalized and the relatives' demands for justice can be met." (AS/SD)