In 2011, the United Nations (UN) recognized August 30 as the “International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance”. Relatives of the disappeared, who were disappeared all over the world for their political identities and many of whom have not even been buried, are constantly asking about the fate of their relatives. 

 

In Turkey and Kurdistan in the 1980s and 1990s, a policy of “unsolved murders” and disappearances in custody was practiced against socialists and democrats, especially Kurds. Of the 500 disappeared persons confirmed by the Memory Center to have been forcibly disappeared, 28 of them were under the age of 18 (the youngest being 3 years old), 482 of them were men and 18 of them were women, and the bodies of 282 of them are still unaccounted for. The policy of impunity was effective in these attacks, which were carried out directly by state forces or by Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti terror Unit (JİTEM), which was not recognized by the state for years. 

 

FIRST TRIALS

 

After the Susurluk report prepared in 1999 as a result of a parliamentary investigation, the first indictment against JİTEM was accepted. However, most of the trials that have continued until today have resulted in either a statute of limitations, acquittal or imprisonment of a few selected names for a few years. In addition to the policies of impunity, relatives of the disappeared have been subjected to other rights violations and unlawful acts in the courts they have visited. However, none of the families gave up their struggle. The most well-known symbols of this struggle, the Saturday Mothers, started their first demonstration on Saturday, May 27, 1995 at Galatasaray Square. The struggle of the relatives of the disappeared later spread to many cities. 

 

 

NAZIM BABAOĞLU

 

Among those who are still searching for traces of their disappeared relatives is the family of Özgür Gündem newspaper reporter Nazım Babaoğlu, who never returned from the Sewreg (Siverek) district of Riha (Urfa), where he went on March 12, 1994, after receiving a phone call saying “urgent news”. Following the disappearance of journalist Babaoğlu, his family and his colleagues at Özgür Gündem newspaper waged a legal struggle for years. During this process, his family and colleagues even reached the witnesses of the incident by their own means due to the lack of investigation. However, despite the recorded statements and evidence, the trial was not initiated by the Urfa Prosecutor's Office, to which the family filed a criminal complaint, on the grounds of “lack of evidence”. 

 

After 10 years of investigation, the family appealed the decision to the Council of State. The decision, which was kept pending for 10 years, ended in 2018 with a negative decision of the Council of State. In the same year, the family applied to the Constitutional Court (AYM) on the grounds of “violation of the right to life”. However, the Constitutional Court found the application “inadmissible” due to the ongoing investigation and failure to exhaust remedies. In the reasoned decision of the Constitutional Court, which was notified to the family, it was stated that the family members “had criminal records for membership or propaganda of a terrorist organization and were tried in courts”, as well as an examination of the population records and that “Nazım is still alive”. 

 

INVESTIGATION ON MISSING NAZIM

 

In the latest National Judiciary Informatic System (UYAP) queries made by the family lawyers, it was revealed that the case number of the investigation file on Nazım Babaoğlu was changed in 2015 and a wanted suspect was added to the file in which Babaoğlu was listed as the “deceased”, and that an investigation was initiated against journalist Babaoğlu in 2021 with the allegation of “illegal organization membership”. Due to the restriction order issued for both investigation files, lawyers and the family were unable to obtain information about the details of the file. 

 

Nazım's older brother Cemal Babaoğlu stated that they have faced many unlawful acts since Nazım's disappearance and drew attention to the policy of abduction and murder carried out by organizations such as JİTEM and Hizbullah in the 1990s. 

 

Babaoğlu said: “They used to say that ‘Hizbullah is doing it, JİTEM is doing it’ or that the organizations they called TİT, the Turkish Revenge Brigade, were committing these murders. It was claimed that the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of General Staff did not know about them, but later confessions showed that they were state officials. They even had payrolls.” 

 

 NAZIM'S DISAPPEARANCE

 

Stating that in the 1990s there was an attempt to trivialize disappearances, Babaoğlu said that especially the “mainstream” media did not mention such incidents at all. Babaoğlu stated that they too became acquainted with this reality after Nazım's disappearance and said: “When Nazım was a reporter for Gündem newspaper, he went to Siverek and we never heard from him again. Both the governor's office and Siverek District Governor's Office said in their written and verbal statements that they did not detain anyone. Despite eyewitnesses, the prosecutor's office did not take any action. The Prime Minister at the time was Tansu Çiller and the Minister of Interior was Mehmet Ağar. They terrorized the Kurdish people under the mask of 'terror will end'. So it was later understood that the Çiller government was a government of terror. At that time, those who lost a son, wife or brother would go to the courthouse. Then they would meet with the governor. When nothing came out of any of these, families started to apply to Human Rights Association (IHD). There, minutes were kept, all eyewitnesses started to be recorded. Then the families started protests saying 'Let the disappeared be found and the perpetrators be tried'.” 

 

CALL FOR CONFRONTATION 

 

Pointing out that the fact of not confronting the disappeared has been continued by the AKP just like the previous governments, Babaoğlu reminded the government's obstructions against the families of the disappeared, especially the Saturday Mothers. Babaoğlu stated that most of the families of the disappeared have not even been able to reunite with their bodies and that they are one of these families and that they do not have a grave to go to this August 30th. 

 

Stating that his mother said, “If you killed him, at least give me my body, at least we will have a grave to pray over,” Babaoğlu said that they had been waging a legal struggle with IHD for years, “This was a social struggle. We demanded that the events that remained in the dark be brought to light, that the state internalize the law and turn towards universal laws. In response to these demands, the state always replied 'we are fighting terrorism'. They need to account for what this century-old racist and monist understanding has cost this country” he said.  

 

MA / Ceylan Şahinli