Human Rights Association Condemns Air Raids

The Human Rights Association (İHD) condemned the bombing of the Qandil region by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in a press release.

At a gathering in Taksim (Istanbul) people displayed photographs of the seven civilians who were killed in air raids showing them before and after their deaths.

İHD Istanbul Branch President Abdülbaki Boğa said that he sincerely apologized to the families of the deceased civilians for publishing the pictures of their relatives who were torn into pieces by the bombs. However, Boğa pointed out that he had to do so in order to make everybody understand that the war had to end.

"The people on these pictures are neither soldiers nor guerrillas but civilians who have nothing to do with war", Boğa underlined and noted that 124 houses were evacuated as the result of the air strikes and that the balance of nature has been destroyed.

He claimed that all people in Turkey wanted this war to end and that the government had to listen to the demands for peace instead of suppressing them with violence.

"The Anti-Terror Law shaped according to the Constitution of 1982 and the other prohibiting laws should be abrogated. Liberal laws have to be enacted that embrace all differences to enable everyone to express their differences equally within the framework of a democratic constitution".

Boğa emphasized that weapons on both sides should fall silent immediately and called on the government to find a solution via negotiations.

The İHD branch president also addressed the media saying that they had to refrain from a language of war that aestheticised death.

The announcement was supported by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the Workers Movement Party (EHP), The Socialist Solidarity Platform (SODAP), the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) and the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (DSİP). (NV/VK)