A rally organised by the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Silopi, a district town of the southeastern province of Şırnak, was attended by thousands of protesters.

 The rally was held on the eighth anniversary of the disappearance of HADEP politicians Serdar Tanış and Ebubekir Deniz; HADEP was a predecessor party to DTP.

Ergenekon link to disappearances

According to Şırnak News, around 8,000 people attended the event. DTP district chair Halil İrmez reminded them that the two politicians were called to the Silopi District Gendarmerie Command on 25 January 2001, and were not seen again. The commander at the time was General Levent Ersöz, now retired and a detained suspect in the Ergenekon investigation.

When Ersöz was arrested, he was accompanied by Selim Gül, a man involved in handing over the two Kurdish politicians to Ersöz in Silopi.

Wells need to be opened

İrmez demanded that the Turkish Pipeline Corporation BOTAŞ open its acid wells, in which, it is believed, many bodies were hidden. He also called for the prosecution of those responsible for the murders of others.

DTP MP Hasip Kaplan also said that bodies had been buried in the wells. He added that informants of the clandestine JITEM gendarmerie organisation had said that bodies could also be found at the bottom of Cudi Mountain.

MP Sevahir Bayındır added that hundreds of people had disappeared in the region and that the culprits needed to be taken to justice.

The DTP MPs went to the BOTAŞ site for an investigation. However, according to the Milliyet newspaper, they were refused entry. The delegation later investigated the three wells in the area.  At one of the wells, two empty cartridges of a G-3 gun were found. Kaplan took one of them as evidence.

Both Tuncay Güney, an informant-cum-suspect in the Ergenekon trial resident in Canada, and Abdülkadir Aygan, a former PKK member-turned-JITEM gunman, have said that many people were thrown into wells between Şırnak and Cizre. Aygan claims to have knowledge of 16 such wells.

Following these claims, the Şırnak Bar Association has filed a criminal complaint, and the prosecution has begun an investigation. DTP MP Selahattin Demirtaş has also called for an opening of Silopi’s graveyard of the poor, claiming that many more bodies than the number of graves would be found there. (TK/AG)