A new report has mapped out enforced disappearances that are connected to the elements in Turkish government security services.
The report provides an in-depth look into 25 cases of enforced disappearances that have taken place in recent years in parallel to growing human rights violations in Turkey.
A Brussels based NGO “Solidarity with OTHERS” has published a new report called “Enforced Disappearances: Turkey’s Open Secret”. “A dark stain on Turkey’s human rights record since the 1980s, enforced disappearances led by state agents have reappeared after a failed coup attempt in July 2016,” the report found.
According to the report, between the 1980 coup d’état and the attempted coup in July 2016, up to 2,000 people were believed to have forcibly disappeared in Turkey, with some 450 of confirmed cases.
In the 1990s, at the height of the armed conflict between Turkish security forces and PKK, disappearances particularly targeted members of Turkey’s Kurdish minority. After a certain progress thanks to the improvement of human rights conditions in Turkey in the 2000s, enforced disappearance cases started to reemerge following the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016.
“The practice of deprivation of liberty was not limited to formal detention and arrest. It also included the abrupt disappearance of a number of people,” the report noted. The target of the enforced disappearances is mostly individuals with alleged links to the Gulen movement, a faith-based group targeted by the Erdogan government, the report concluded.
A series of kidnappings reportedly carried out by Turkish intelligence in 2019. Six people – Salim Zeybek, Erkan Irmak, Yasin Ugan, Özgür Kaya, Mustafa Yılmaz and Gökhan Türkmen – went missing under highly suspicious circumstances. All of them except Yusuf Bilge Tunç reappeared mysteriously in police custody in Ankara after six to nine-month absences. Tunç’s whereabouts remain unknown to date.
The post Turkey’s enforced disappearances charted in a new report appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkeys-enforced-disappearances-charted-in-a-new-report/
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder