Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE~PRESS REVIEW~BERHEVOKAÇAPÊ~RNISTA
STAMPA~DENTRO DE LA PRENSA~BASIN ÖZETÎ
The'IHD,iri its 1993ännual report,
,noted that, there was an increase in the
number of extrajudicial executions. murders,
missing people, deaths by t?rtur~,
unidentified killers and journalists III
detention.
'
It stressed that a total of 135 people had
fallen victim to "extrajudicial killings,"
while 21 were killed under torture and 29
others were reported "missing" under
detention in 1993. January 1994 figures
on those missing and tortured to death'
have already reached up to half of the
, total year-end figures for 1993.
A total of 51 journalists were imprisoned
in 1993, while in the 1992- 1993
period 260 newspapers and magazines
were seized. Some 33 books were banned
from publication and all copies wereconfiscated.
Journalists and authors were sentenced
to a total of 231 years iml'risonment
and fined a total of TL 21,000 billion.
The IHD said the arrests of journalists
and the seizures of publications have so
far continued unabated in 1994.
Turkish Daily News
ANKARA-
The Turks call them "Faili
meçhul." This means something between
"murder by person or Rersons unknown"
and "unsolved murders. At the TON, they
are called "mystery murders." As far as the
Kurds of the Southeast are concerned, they
are not so mysterious. A large part pf the
population believes that the murders are the
~esult of a gang-war betw.een groups fiohtmg
for po\ver and control m the regIOn.,=he
phenomenon was first noted in the early
, 1990s in the petroleum refinery city of
Batman but gradually spread to other parts
of the region and later spilled over to the
rest ofTurkey.
They first took the fonh of armed attacks
by alleoed radical Islamic activists on pro-
Kurdish activists and suspected separatist
sympathizers. Later, they turned. into a
small-scalewar between groups usm~ the
name of Hezbollah or "Party of God' and
the PKK (outlawed Kurdistan Workers'
Party).
In 1993, Kurds observed a shifting of the
balance, as well as a war within the Islamic
movement. Today there is conflict between
anti-Kurdish and pro-Kurdish radical
Islamic groups, as well as a war between the
anti-Kurdish Islamists and the pro-Kurdish
activists of the region. ,
The general belief that the radical
Islamists were being tolerated and even supported
by state forces has, in many
mstances, been proved.
On television last year pictures were
shown of radical Islamic traming activities
takino place in an army fortress. More
recen~y, journalist Soner Yalçm published
an interview with a retired senIOr army
intelligence officer who. along with some of
his friends, was later killed in a "mystery
murder" last year. Retired Maj. Ahmet Cern
Ersever, the founder and former head of the
Gendarmerie intelligence force, said in the
interview that the killers were not only
trained but also sheltered by local civilian
178
a'nd military authorities. Official personnel
identified the targets and facilitated the
assassinations. This was a stunning confession,
but neither the Interior Milllstry nor
the Chief of Staffs office have been willing
to launch an investigation into the issue.
According to the local Kurds in Batman,
radical Islamic militants with official connections
are behind the murders. According
to Ersever, those who pull the trigger are,
almost always "penitents," people who have
defected from the PKK and who are now
supposed to be in prison.
,/ As far as Ankara is concerned, political
IOnorance of the problem has only fanned
the killings. Until 1993, both the interior
minister and the Emergency Law regional
governor denied any knowledge whatsoever
of a covert "Hezbollah" oroanization.
However, as Soon as the state forces started'
being accused of the murders, Ankara
jumped at the opportunity to put the blame
on another illegal organization.
Suddenly the organization which officially
did not exist came into being and was
blamed for all controversial crimes. IHD
(Turkish Human Riohts Association) figures
for the first monthOof 1994 show that the
killings ar~ not only continui~g t!lis year but
Jhat there IS a serious escalatIOn m the number
of murders. A total of 55 "mystery murders"
were recorded in January and most of
these were committed in the troubled
Southeast. There. about one person is now
dying each and l'\wy day - the victim, of
an underground war thai runs parallel to the
undeclared war spread throughout the
reoion.
'
9fhe bizarre cases of "mystery murders"
are detailed in this month's bulletin of the
Human Rights Association:
On Jan. 2, a coffee house in the tncecik
village of Elbistan was sprayed with bullets.
Bekir Semen was killed In the attack during
which nine others were wounded.
On Jan. 3, Abdülkerim Ergün (38) was
shot to death in Midyat, Mardin.
On Jan. 3, Sinan Karga (51) was killed in
an armed attack on his house in Kavurga
village, Urfa.
On Jan. 4, Re~at Kaya (48) was shot to
death in the Kar~lyaka district of Batman.
On Jan. 9, Cevdet Günde~ (37) was
killed in the shoe repair shop where he was
workin~ in the Sebitlik area of Diyarbakir.
On Jan. 10, prison warder Ahmet
llyasoglu was shot to death while he was
going to work in Bataman. .
On Jan. 11, a TPAO enomeer and member
of Petrol-t~, tsa Ozer Ô7) was killed in
an armed attack as he was leaving his house
in the Kar~lyaka area of Batman.
On Jan. 11, FIrat Ça~lar (18) was shot to
death in Dagkapl, DiyaroakIr.
On Jan. 12, unidentified gunmen killed
Selahattin Biçin in Baglar, DiyarbakIr.
On Jan. 12, an umdentified victim was
, shot to death in the Nusaybin district of
Mardin.
On Jan. 12, Binali Peker, the head man
of KlZIlkaya village in Erzurum, was found
dead. '
On Jan. 12, Abdurahman Ata, Flfat
Soyvural, M. Serif Çokuz, all students of
Yahya Kemal high school, were killed in
the cro,s-fire between three gunmcn in
Batman.
On Jan. 13, Azad Önen (16) was shot to
death in ~ehitlik, DiyarbakIr.
On Jan. 13, Berdin Kaya (17), a student
at Atatürk Hi~h School in Diyarbakir, was
attacked witn a meat cleaver and died
instantly.
On Jan. 13, ~eyhmuz Rüzgar and Zeki
Oguzhan were seriously wounded in an
armed attack in the 19 MaYls area of
Batman.
On Jan. 14, Mahmut Asian was killed in
bis work place in ~ehitlik, DiyarbakIr.
On' Jan. 14, Salih Turgut was shot to
death in Baglar, DiyarbakIr. .
On Jan. 14, a bomb was hurled at a
house in a village in Sirnak and Abdülkerim
, Karatoprak, Osman f~can and an unidenti-