IHD Diyarbakir 26.08.2008- For the reason that on 22 August 2008, Friday around 18.15 in the village Hedik belonging to Lice administrative district within the province of Diyarbakýr; the settlement areas, houses and the people there having been being fired at, continuously and randomly for half an hour by soldiers, village guards and task forces and because of the increase in traffic of phone calls, claiming that the village was being kept in siege for about 15 hours, a human rights commission have gone to the village and have mutually prepared the report with us that we shall present to you.
Village Hedik belonging to Lice administrative district within the province of Diyarbakýr was evacuated by force in 1988. Some of the villagers began to live under the unbearable circumstances after having gone to metropoles like Antalya, Ýstanbul, Adana , Ýzmir and especially Diyarbakýr.

From 1999 on with the conflicts decreasing relatively in the region, some of the villagers started to come back to their villages. With the summer of 2003 about 30-40 households came to the village, started to live in tents, cultivated their gardens, grew tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, aubergines and beans for selling them especially in Lice or in Diyarbakýr to make money for buying firewood, coal to heat their shanties in metropoles. In order to be able to earn their keep, they established temporary tents on their land and started to live under these tents for a few months.

Ýt is determined that in village Hedik belonging to Lice administrative district within the province of Diyarbakýr in 22 August 2008, Friday, around 18.15 and 18.30; the settlement areas, houses and the people there including children have been fired at continuosly and randomly for half an hour without any warning by a crowded group including village guards, soldiers and task forces, then everybody in the village had been forced to stay in their houses and the village had been closed to entrances and exits until the next day.

Recently it is observed  that the pressure upon the people especially who are back to their villages temporarily in the summer time or the ones that are trying to come back to their lands is getting increased in the region. Since the beginning of 2008, the Human Rights Violations are getting quite increased in our region. Ýt is stressed that soldiers, task forces and village guards who are keeping on staying in villages beside the conflicts cause serious violations because of their attidues to the villagers and citizens ; including the violations on the right of living,  the evidents such as firing at houses or being subjected to howitzer attack are getting increased and these are violations and negative attitudes that shouldn’t be faced in a democratic country. The Human Rights Commission’s interference aiming to institute an inquiry was concluded positively and it is supposed through the inquiry that Public Prosecutor of Lice has instituted the responsibles of incident will be determinated and pleaded because of attempting to kill someone with targeting without taking in consideration. We wish it will be the last after this violating the right of living that had done by security forces arbitrarily through violating the law and rules and again we stress that we are in suppose of a year without violations.

Aysel Tuðluk, Lawyer - DTP Diyarbakýr MP
Ayla AKAT ATA, Lawyer - DTP Batman MP
Þeymus BAYHAN, Lawyer – The Chairman of the Lice Municipality
Nesip YILDIRIM ,Lawyer – The Vice President of the General Secretary of Mazlum-Der
Lawyer – The Chairman of the Diyarbakýr Branch of the Human Rights Association
Selçuk MIZRAKLI, Doctor – The Chairman of the Chamber of Doctors of Diyarbakýr
Rauf ÇÝÇEK, Lawyer – the Member of Administrative Council of  The Bar of Lawyers of Diyarbakýr
Nejdet ATALAY- the DTP Diyarbakýr Provincial Chairman,
Zeynel Baðýr –the DTP Diyarbakýr Provincial Administrator.

The prisons keep on scattering death

Medine EKÝNCÝ, born in Derik in 1969, applied to our Association on 5 July and 4 August 2008, wanted that her ill son should be treated by declaring as follows below:

“My son Abdülaziz EKÝNCÝ, born in 1983, was quite normal with  his physchology till he was in high school. After he was graduated from high school, his behaviours began to change; including the odd attitudes, to gallivant irresponsibly and being away from home for 2-3 days. He began to behave as if he was mad. Nearly 15 months ago during a control in the bus of Kiziltepe-Derik hashish had been captured and it was said that it had belonged to my son and he was arrested and imprisoned in Mardin Prison. But the guardions are always beating my son.

My son has the medical report which he had taken from the Diyarbakýr State Hospital in 15.09.2005. Ýn the Health Council Medical Report it is specified that my son is %45 handicapped and has Parkinson in Stage 2-3. For my son is always being beaten since he was imprisoned, he is only able to come with two guardians in his arms when I go to visit him in the prison. His face and back are bruised when I see him in my visits. In the past he was speaking with me. But rightnow, he can’t answer my calls and can’t speak, either. His mouth is getting foamy and he can’t go to the toilet on his own. He is living in cruel conditions in the prison. The guardians brought him into this situation. Where is State, why has the State got no mercy?! Am I not a citizen of this country? Why does nobody help my son? Why does nobody hear my voice? Why is everybody deaf?

My husband is working in the Sur Municipality as a labourer and we live in a shanty. For we are relatives with my husband, one of my daughters, who is 10 years old, is handicapped and she can’t speak. There is deficiency of bone on her back. I have 8 daughters and 3 boys. My son and my daughter are handicapped. When I go to the prison to visit my son, he is dropping from the chair. The people around are looking at us and crying, I can’t touch and help my son and I’m crying. The every day of visiting is turned into cruelty. They beaten my son a lot, he wasn’t like that before. I sent my son to the prison physically well, but I now well know that I will bring his body and take out him from the prison. I sued to the Ministry of Justice for nearly 15 or 20 times. But I got no answer. Ýn one of my visits, my son could harldy tell the names of the two guardians, Seyithan and Þirin. He was mute and said, “They beat me”. When I heard that, I began to cry. Then I wrote requests against them, but there is no feedback. Why do nor State neither its institutions behave like this, why don’t they reply us  as we are human?

I had applied to your association for his treatment. Shortly after the HRA’s written request, they began to treat my son. Then, his treatment stopped. I asked them why they hadn’t given his medicines, they said to me that they had run out of  medicines, they had asked to Ankara to send new ones and still waiting for the reply. I know that my son’s dead body will come before they reply. I want the body of my son that now I believe is dead. I have no hope. I can’t trust anyone. As an desperate mother, I refuged to HRA. Please, help me!”

Upon the application of Medine EKÝNCÝ on 22 July 2008, requests were sent to the Ministry of Justice, the Human Rights Presidency of the Prime Ministry, the Human Rights Commission of the Turkish National Assembly, the Governship of Mardin, the Public Prosecutor of Mardin and to The Commission of Prisons Watch in Mardin.

Medine EKÝNCÝ applied to our association once again on 22 August 2008. Her son, Abdülaziz EKÝNCÝ had died in Adana where he was treated.

Throughout the claims, declarations, the documents that had been handed over by the applicant, it is being understood that her son was ill, he was subjected to the ill-treatment, none of the rules for handicapped and disabled people was regarded, therefore he lost his life. During the last six months we are getting very serious applications on torture and ill-treatment from the prisons. Especially in Mardin, Erzurum, Bitlis and Siirt prisons the applications about the unlimited ill-treatment of guardians against the prisoners is getting significantly increased. In fact,it is hard to understand the impassive attitudes of authority despite these applications. It seems as if the prisons are under the control of sado-masochist guardians more than being under the control of a state. Disabled citizens also have some rights given by the Act. Who will stop these savage implementations on this disabled citizen in the prison which is under the control of the State? There is no tolerance for these kind of implementations on the political prisoners or the ones imprisoned for simple offences in a constitutional state. The family filed a complaint against Mehmet Zahir Aydýn, the Chief Executioner of Mardin Prison and the officers called Seyithan TOSUN and Mehmet Þirin BAYIK who are working as guardians. On 29.07.2008 the Public Prosecuter of Mardin took the decision asserting that there is no need for prosecution. But, Abdülaziz doesn’t live anymore. He died. The ones who had beaten him are free. We think that the claim of his family wasn’t investigated enough. The prisons in our area have been examined closely and we demand that you send inspectors to examine the prisons and investigate the allegations mentioned and re-open investigations about the guardians in question. The inquirements can’t bring Abdülaziz back, but it will reduce his mother’s grief at least a bit. We want that the justice must be served.

The Crime Against Hmanity Continues With Torture

Torture is going on in an unquestioned way before the eyes of everyone. While the human rights advocaters claim that the torture is still going on in this country, the politicians and the government stress that these are baseless allegations; however yesterday a man was subjected to torture by an uniformed policeman in a street in Diyarbakýr. Suat YALÇIN, who applied to our association branch on 25 August 2008, declared as follows below:

On 24 August 2008 around 23.15 ; two men, one of them was sergeant, came to the coffee house that I run with a Renault Megan car and asked me about Digiturk and D-Smart cards.They told me that they had come for asking the cards’ passwords. And I asked them if they had incumbency certificate or not; because the controller of these cards must be authorized people. But, upon my answer, he threatened me by saying “How can you dare it!You will see now!”. Then he called for an official police crew. Firstly the motorized unit (which is named as the Dolphins by the people) arrived. Then another crew came. They brought me to the pavement against coffee house. They began to beat me in public.. They beaten me with billies, sticks etc. Meanwhile, upon the people’s reaction, the motorized unit debated with other police and they tried to save me. By the way, they began to beat my brother who was trying to save me from the police. The motorized unit saved my brother from the other police and preserved him in order not to be beaten any more.

Around 23.00 p.m, they brought me and my brother Mete YALÇIN, who saw that they were beating me, to the Baðlar Police Station and swore us on the way to the station. In the police car, when they brought us to the station they swore and insulted us. When I entered the station, they descended on me and they began to beat me again. Because of the ill-treatment against me and my brother in the police station, my brother fainted. Although I  asked for a lawyer all the night, they didn’t let for it until 04.00 of the next day.  During the five hours that I stayed there, almost all police swore and tortured me. I was subjected to ill-treatment. They brought me to the Public Hospital around 00.30-01.00 after all the torture and ill-treatment. The next day, they brought me to the Prosecution Office around 13.30. I told my complaints there. The Prosecutor sent me to the institution of forensic medicine at first. But I returned to the Prosecution Office because there was no doctor there. This time, the Prosecution sent me to the Medical Faculty of the Dicle University. Besides this in the police station one of the civil policeman came and said me “I’m working in counter terrorism department. Drop the charge , save yourself. If not, you know we are police and we can find you guilty in any way”. I said ‘No, you tortured me unjustly. I won’t drop the charge.”

Suat YALÇIN’s business partner Sedat KILIÇ declared these: I went to the police station on 25.08.2008 around 12.00. I was going to ask to my partner if he needed anything.  Meanwhile, a child (one like 17 years old) who was there because of  the accusation of burglary  said to me “ Brother, what did he do? They beaten him very badly.”  

How can the police dare to torture by beating the victim, Suat YALÇIN, so heavily in a street in full view of people? They say there is no tolerance to torture in this country. So what is that? Now we ask; who are these people that come to coffee house with a Megan car and ask for D-smart card arbitrarily? Why are the motorized unit and other police beaten that man in an unquestioned way. Although the torture and ill-treatment are crimes in addition to our law and the police know that more than everybody, how can they do it so overt and never hesitate? Why was Suat YALÇIN threatened after being tortured in the police station? We want the answers of all these questions and demand from the prosecuters of the Turkish Republic, which is a State of Law, to investigate and  find the responsibles of this evident and try them. We wish that AKP, which is responsible for all these, will follow the process. Torture is a crime against humanity and the people who conceal  this crime are as guilty as the ones who commit the crime. We want them to be tried.