'Investigate enforced disappearances impartially and courageously'
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The Saturday Mothers, the Human Rights Association (İHD) İstanbul Branch and the Commission Against and the İHD Commission Against Disappearances in Custody marked the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
Releasing a statement, they demanded Turkey sign and implement the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
"Even though it carries heavy brutality and endless mourning and torture, our story is actually a struggle for truth and justice against oppression and denial.
"We call on the judicial authorities to end the existing impunity and impartially and courageously carry out the investigations and prosecutions regarding disappearances in detention.
"We call on the government to immediately sign and implement the United Nations Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
"We call on national and international mechanisms for the protection of human rights to take action against grave violations suffered by the relatives of the disappeared, as a requirement of their founding purpose."
On Galatasaray Square since 1995According to the Center for Truth, Justice and Memory, there are a total of 1,352 persons found to have been forcibly disappeared in Turkey. On May 27, 1995, Saturday Mothers/People gathered for the first time on Galatasaray Square for the ones who disappeared in custody. The first sit-in protests started after the deceased body of Hasan Ocak, who was taken into custody on March 21, 1995, was found in the Cemetery of the Nameless after being tortured. The Saturday protests at Galatasaray Square were interrupted for an indefinite period on March 13, 1999, due to heavy police intervention for the last three years. The interruption continued for the next 10 years. The silent sit-in protests of Saturday Mothers/People, which they started again at Galatasaray Square in 2009, continued until the police intervention in August 2018. In the 700th sit-in on August 25, 2018, the police attacked the crowd with rubber bullets, detaining several relatives of the disappeared. The detained were released after giving their statements on the same day. Speaking about the incident, Human Rights Association (İHD) İstanbul Chair Gülseren Yoleri said that the 700th week of the gathering was "arbitrarily banned with a decision signed by the Beyoğlu Sub-Governor within the knowledge of Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu. Detained in the 700th week, Maside Ocak said, "In 1997, we used to be detained as two generations; today, we were detained as three." Maside Ocak, the elder sister of Hasan Ocak, whose dead body was found in a common grave after he was detained on March 21, 1995, said that her 82-year-old mother Emine Ocak was attempted to be detained as well, she was not taken to the police bus at the last minute, she was pushed with police shields and her arms were bruised. According to the data of the Truth Justice Memory Center, 1,352 people have been subjected to enforced disappearance in Turkey. |
(HA/VK)