522 Unsolved Murders in 5 Years

According to the Report on Human RightsViolations in the Eastern and South-Eastern Region issued by the Diyarbakır Branch of the Human Rights Associaiton (İHD), 106,479 cases of rights violations were registered between 2006 and 2010. Data compiled by the Documentation Centre of the Turkish Human Righst Foundation (TİHV) revealed 1885 unsolved murders in Turkey between 1990 and 2009.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced, "There were no rights violations at my time on duty". Yet, a couple of rights violations, disappearances and unsolved murders were on the agenda of the media. On 9 February, the "Investigation Commission on Unsolved Murders" was established as part of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission. The first case to be investigated by the commission will be Tolga Baykal Ceylan who disappeared in police custody in 2004.

The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Deputy for Şırnak, Hasip Kaplan, criticized that disappearances in police custody and unsolved murders were crammed into the work of the sub-commission. Leman Yurtsever, member of the İHD Commission against Disappearances in Police Custody, was also skeptical. "We did not want such a commission. We requested to establish a commission made up of scientists, intellectuals, doctors and experts", Yurtsever said.

Raci Bilici, secretary of the İHD Branch in Diyarbakır (south-eastern Turkey), said in an interview with bianet that also the cases of Uğur Kaymaz, Ceylan Önkol, Aydın Erdem and the people who died in the incidents in May 2006 belonged to the group of unsolved murders.

"They said he hung himself in the cell"

The İHD report also includes the testimonies of relatives and close friends of the disappeared. Gurgin Yavuzer applied to the İHD Diyarbakır Branch on 7 June 2005. He recalled, "We are living in Batman but my brother Murat Yavuzer, born in 1977 in Mardin, and my sister are registered in Diyarbakır. Murat was taken into custody by the police forces on 1 June 2005 in Diyarbakır. First he was taken to the downtown police station and later on to the Sağlık Police Station. We were informed that my brother died on 2 June 2005 at 10.00 o'clock. The police officers said that my brother hung himself in the cell. However, the ceiling of the cell they kept him in was very low and Murat was tall. We think that he did not commit suicide".

The İHD report shows the following figures regarding deaths caused by unsolved murders and by violations of the military's and police's authority to use a weapon in the Eastern and South-Eastern region:

2006:          72
2007:          103
2008:          52
2009:          91
2010:          57
Total:                   375

According to the report, 93 people died of mines and other explosives, 336 were injured. Additionally, the association received 3121 applications related to torture and maltreatment between 2006 and 2010.

In their general report on Turkey, the TİHV determined a number of 522 unsolved murders between 2006 and 2010 including incidents in custody and prison. (AS/EÖ/VK)