Celal Başlangıç was a distinguished Turkish journalist renowned for his unwavering commitment to exposing human rights violations, particularly those targeting Kurdish communities in Turkey. His career in journalism was characterised by fearless reporting, notably his exposé on the appalling incident in Cizre’s Yeşilyurt village, where Kurdish villagers were compelled to consume human faeces by Turkish security forces. This revelation, which he brought to light, was a rare occasion where such abuses were officially acknowledged and led to judicial consequences for the perpetrators.
Throughout his career, Başlangıç contributed to various media outlets and platforms that prioritised news with a strong focus on human rights and justice. His work not only informed the public about the injustices endured by marginalised communities but also held those in power accountable, often at considerable personal risk. His death represents a significant loss for investigative journalism in Turkey, especially in a time when press freedom faces substantial obstacles.
Medya News here presents his formidable article on how he uncovered and reported the Yeşilyurt incident, as he wrote it for Bianet. In this account, Başlangıç detailed the grim conditions of his journey to Yeşilyurt, highlighting his relentless determination to shed light on these stories despite the oppressive darkness that literally and metaphorically enveloped the region.
‘The signal flare of 90s: The first convicted case of human rights abuse in Yeşilyurt’
The appointed time for the meeting had arrived.
Outside, there was rain, darkness and cold.
The electricity had cut out a short while before. What remained on the large communal table for thirty was merely leftovers on the plates: bare lamb bones and grains of rice, faintly illuminated by dim candlelight.
The events of the past days had turned into deep lines that clung to the faces of everyone around the table, shadow upon shadow. Silence reigned supreme; sighs, coughs, the clicking of prayer beads, the flick of lighters, lighters going out…
The villagers of Yeşilyurt were waiting. They were clearly in a cold darkness.
I need to get up.
“I’m going.”
This voice seemed to fall into a void. Eyes met each other covertly.
The Social Democratic People’s Party (SHP) Mayor of Cizre Tahir Vesek was at the point where the eyes converged. It was clear that the idea of someone leaving his house alone at this hour of the night unnerved him.
The tall, thin young man who had been standing throughout the meal made a subtle gesture with the tip of his finger. He dashed out as soon as he saw the signal.
Outside, there was rain, cold and darkness. Tahir Vesek reached towards the window:
“You can go now. Once you’re done, the lads will bring you back. Make sure you don’t walk the streets alone.”
The room opened onto a large courtyard, surrounded by walls as high as a castle, a result of a relentless blood feud. There was a long corridor leading from the courtyard to the outer door. At every recess, tall young men stood guard.
The outer door opened. The guards were eagle-eyed, their hands ready to reach for their holsters in a heartbeat.
The villagers of Yeşilyurt were still waiting.
Two groups of people, one on each side, ducked from under the streetlights into the darkness. They had surrounded me in a “U” shape. The openings in their jackets were the width of the handle of a gun. Added to this the cold and the rain, and the darkness too, the atmosphere became even more eerie.
I had come with an SHP delegation to investigate incidents of torture, from İdil to Cizre via Batman. Along the way, we had heard horrific tales of torture and witnessed the anxiety caused by a massive wave of arrests.
Everywhere we met people who still bore the marks of torture, and those worried about the fate of relatives who had been detained.
On the way from İdil to Cizre, Hasip Kaplan, an İdil member of the SHP Central Discipline Committee, had detached himself from the crowd and approached us. Kaplan had documents of torture and detention in the folders he carried. One of these was a handwritten two-page petition, and this petition was what was leading me through the dark streets of Cizre to the villagers of Yeşilyurt.
There had been a nightmare had been in Cizre for days.
A police car emerging from İdil Street had pulled up to the left side of the road. Just as two officers in uniform were stepping out of the car, they were caught in crossfire.
It was broad daylight. The date was 13 January 1989… The time was 13:25…
There were two shooters. It was another instance of the “pavement murders” that had been going on in Cizre for a year. Two gunmen, pistols, shooting from close range using crossfire… But with one difference this time, the victims were not informants, but police officers!
This incident had marked a turning point in Cizre. The killing of the two police officers had led to a major operation and a wave of arrests in the district.
Neighbourhoods were seized, entry and exit was prohibited. Only “small children capable of buying bread” could go to the shops. There was great tension in the air in Cizre. While on the one hand the operation continued, doors were being broken in, the people in the buildings were beaten and some were arrested, on the other, public dissent was growing. An “undeclared curfew” was being enforced at night. According to reports, the number of those arrested had exceeded 300.
In such a Cizre, in the darkness of night, I was searching for the shop where I had arranged to meet villagers of Yeşilyurt. The young men who had left Tahir Vesek’s house with me were also looking carefully at the signs. One of them said, “Okay, I found it,” “Kent Food Market…”
I entered through the slightly open door of the shop.
Inside, eight people were seated. All of them from Yeşilyurt. They handed me a photocopy of the petition Hasip Kaplan had given me in İdil:
“Have you read this?”
I had read it, but it was hard to believe. The petition was in front of me. Under the flickering candlelight, what it described seemed even more incredible.
“To the Office of the State Prosecutor,
Accused: The security forces who came to Yeşilyurt village on 14-15 January 1989.
Crime: Mistreatment of individuals, torture.
Incident:
1) At around 02.00 on the night of 14-15 January 1989, our village of Yeşilyurt, attached to Cizre, was surrounded by gendarmes, commandos, special forces and other security forces. In the early morning, a donkey and two foals were spotted in silhouette, and the donkey was injured when they were shot at.
2) The security personnel who entered the village claimed that three people had fled from the village, and they gathered all the villagers together, men and women. Houses were searched, and no evidence of wrongdoing was found. One at a time the women were forced to open their mouths for inspection, they were body-searched, and all the men were made to lie face down on the ground. Throughout, they were subjected to foul language and accusations with statements like ‘You are nurturing the PKK, you are enemies, we will destroy this village.’ The village headman was told, ‘You are not village head for the state, but for the PKK,’ as security forces walked on the backs of villagers lying on the ground, in the snow and cold, and subjected them to crude beating.
3) Village headman Abdurrahman Müştak, his uncle Kamil Müştak, Abdullah Gündoğan, and Bahattin Müştak were taken for questioning and beaten for hours, beng injured as a result.
4) Human excrement was collected from around the area and the headman’s uncle, Kamil Müştak was forced to put it into everyone’s mouths, regardless of whether they were young or old. Then, Bahattin Müştak, the son of Kamil Müştak, was forced to feed this human excrement to his own father. The elderly Kamil Müştak was injured. Abdurrahman Müştak and Abdullah Gündoğan were also injured.
5) On 15 January, the villagers had not been released and they were prevented from lodging complaints. Kamil Müştak and Ahmet Kaya were taken barefoot in the snow to Cizre, seven kilometers away.
6) Even though no evidence of any crime was found in the village, we were subjected to all kinds of degrading, inappropriate and unlawful mistreatment and torture.”
I looked at their faces in the darkness again. I could hardly believe what I had read. I asked emphatically:
“**Were you really fed human excrement?**”
All eight nodded in unison:
“Yes, all of us were fed human excrement.”
**TERRORIST INJURED ON BACK OF LEG!**
What had happened to the villagers of Yeşilyurt seemed hardly believable. What they had experienced since the military coup of 12 September 1980 was already a story that was hard to put into words. But they had only written about the disgraceful events of the night of 14-15 January in their petition, sending it first to the Cizre State Prosecutor’s Office, then to the President [Kenan Evren], the Motherland Party (ANAP), the Social Democratic People’s Party (SHP), the True Path Party (DYP), the Ministry of Interior [Mustafa Kalemli], the Chief of General Staff [Necip Torumtay] and the Human Rights Association, hoping that perhaps one day this oppression might end.
Since September 1980, the villagers of Yeşilyurt had never been left in peace. They were pressurised to become state-sponsored village guards, subjected to open threats like, “if you do not surrender your weapons…”, and subjected to raids night and day. In Yeşilyurt, which was the largest village of Cizre with 120 households and seven hamlets as of 12 September 1980, the number of households had dropped to 80. They had sent petitions everywhere they believed they could make their voices heard, hoping to share not just what they had endured over the years but specifically the shameful stories of that one night.
In fact, the experiences of the Yeşilyurt villagers, go far beyond what is described in this official petition.
After the killing of the two policemen on 13 January, operations that had begun in [Cizre] town centre were shifted to the villages the following night. Yeşilyurt village, seven kilometers from Cizre, was surrounded by commandos, special forces, gendarmes, and “civilian personnel” active in the region.
It was a few hours into 15 January. By 02:00, the encirclement was complete. In a hamlet a few hundred metres from the village, three silhouettes were moving. The soldiers began firing indiscriminately. The silhouettes disappeared. There was firing from all around the village. The villagers, in their warm beds, could not understand what was happening. Then they heard the announcement:
“Anyone who shows their face will be killed. Everyone go into your homes. Close your window shutters.”
The village descended into silence. The villagers withdrew into their homes, waiting to see what would happen next.
After a while, the major in command ordered everyone to come out of their homes. Men, women, children… Even infants in their cradles were to be placed at the front door. All the villagers were gathered in the area. The commander ordered the separation of men and women. Then, he turned to the men and asked the elderly and the young to form two separate groups. In this region, old age was considered to start at 60. The commander turned to the group of young men and ordered them to lie down on the ground. He then claimed that three terrorists had escaped from the village and demanded that they be found immediately. Village headman Abdurrahman Müştak and his uncle Kamil Müştak tried to explain that there were no terrorists in the village. As a result, both the headman and his uncle were taken for “interrogation.” In this context, “interrogation” essentially meant severe beating. Afterwards, the commander ordered the soldiers, who then walked on the backs of the young men lying on the ground for a while.
Every house in the village was searched. No evidence of any crime was found. However, the gendarmes did not leave the village, in order to prevent the villagers from going to the district centre to file complaints. Meanwhile, the nomads around the village sent a message to the headman. They had worked it out. The three terrorists believed to have left the village at dawn were actually a donkey belonging to the village, and its two foals. The headman took the donkey, whose hind legs had been shattered by the gunfire, and the waiting foals back to the stable.
The next day, the major came and asked the headman, “Did you find the terrorists?” “Yes,” replied the headman, “I found them.” The commander couldn’t believe what he heard and was curious about where they were. The headman pointed to the stable; “They’re in there.” “What are they doing there?” the commander shouted. The headman calmly responded:
“They are the donkey and the foals. You shot them yesterday, saying they were terrorists.”
They then documented the torture and harrassment, which would eventually escalate to people being forcefed faeces, in a petition and submitted it to every person and institution they believed to be relevant. They also had in their possession medical reports proving they had been tortured.
‘**DON’T GO, THEY WILL SHOOT YOU!**’
In order not to “fall victim to an accident”, I wrote this article on the day I left the region.
But could a story titled “Yeşilyurt villagers were fed faeces by soldiers” make it into the news in January 1989?
It was not easy to say “Yes” to this question.
That’s why I wrote it as an impression rather than as news. I metaphorically “hid” the incident of being fed faeces in the penultimate paragraph. I titled it “An individual story of torture.”
On 22 January 1989, the article was published in the Cumhuriyet newspaper, announced in a single column on the front page.
However, my fear had come true.
The “faeces feeding” incident that I had hidden in the penultimate paragraph was completely removed from the article, along with all the villagers’ statements related to this topic.
In those days, the first question that came to mind in such situations was “Should I leave this profession?”
As I experienced a turmoil of emotions, the phone rang. It was Hasan Cemal, the managing editor.
“Your piece was very well written, well done,” he said.
I explained the situation, related the section that had been cut, and told him that I no longer saw any meaningful purpose in journalism, hence I was considering resigning.
He was surprised as well.
“Would you enter the village again?” he asked. Without hesitation, I said “Yes,” to which he replied, “Go back to the village, and I’ll make it a headline.”
In the Cumhuriyet’s Adana office, everyone who heard I would return to Yeşilyurt shared the same opinion:
“Don’t go, they will shoot you!”
During this discussion, Cüneyt Canver, SHP MP for Adana, entered the office. He joined the debate over whether I should go or not. Eventually, Canver declared his decision:
“If you go, I will come with you to Yeşilyurt.”
This didn’t change anyone’s opinion:
“Don’t go, this time they will shoot both of you.”
It seems that we needed to go with a larger group.
I called Fuat Atalay, the SHP MP for Diyarbakır. “Okay,” Atalay said, “I’ll come too.”
Eventually, a plan was made. Canver and I would go from Adana to Cizre. Atalay would catch the first flight from Ankara to Diyarbakır, where he would meet our Siirt correspondent, Cengiz Mumay. They would then travel together to Cizre. Our meeting place was the office of Tahir Vesek, the Mayor of Cizre.
I immediately called Tahir Vesek to say, “We are coming.”
No more than half an hour after this phone call, Vesek called me breathlessly from Cizre.
“After your call, I received an ‘unknown’ call. They said, ‘He is not to come, he will be shot.'”
Clearly, the phones were being closely monitored. They hadn’t restricted themselves to listening, but even resorted to making threats.
PRIMARY SCHOOL TO BECOME POLICE STATION
Finally, we met at the Cizre mayor’s office as planned.
Mayor Vesek kept saying, “Let the MPs go, but don’t you go.” His persistence was futile. Along with Canver, Atalay and Mumay, we set off towards the village of Yeşilyurt.
To get to Yeşilyurt, one had to veer off the Cizre-Nusaybin road and take a narrow, dirt road stretching towards the mountains.
At the turn-off to the village road, three military vehicles were parked. When they saw our vehicles, the engines of the jeep and two trucks started up. Just as we approached, the vehicles moved ahead towards the village.
We were all heading to the village in a convoy. The tension of the situation had greatly increased. It seemed they were waiting for us.
The five-kilometre dirt road was nearly at its end. The houses of Yeşilyurt began to come into view. The military vehicles started to slow down. Soldiers jumped out at intervals of two meters, encircling the village. We all had the feeling that we were walking into a trap.
When the dirt road climbing towards the hills of Cizre district ended, the soldiers stopped in front of the village’s “abandoned” primary school. Villagers, ploughing the rocky, hard-to-till fields with mules, raised their heads anxiously at the sound of engines.
The village headman Abdurrahman Müştak rushed out of his house in a panic. When he saw the soldiers outside the village’s dilapidated primary school, the lines of anxiety that had plagued him for days deepened on his face. However, when he saw the MPs Canver and Atalay, along with Mumay and myself, he relaxed a little.
The entire village community surrounded us. They were preparing to recount the raid that had happened days earlier. Meanwhile, their eyes scanned the soldiers encircling the village. They all wondered, “What are they going to do today? Why have they come?”
As the soldiers ran to get orders from the commander, the villagers’ anxiety increased.
A military vehicle raising dust was coming towards the square where we stood with the villagers.
Canver tried to take immediate action:
“You can’t speak freely with the soldiers nearby. If they try to listen in, I’ll say, ‘Headman, invite us to your home for a tea.’ If they try to follow us inside, we won’t let them in.”
That precaution wasn’t needed. The commander of the approaching vehicle, without getting too close to the crowd, called the headman.
“Give me the key to the primary school.”
Yeşilyurt Village Primary School had been closed a year before, due to the lack of appointed teachers. The headman reached into his pocket and pulled out a large, yellow key. The military vehicle left as it had arrived, raising dust.
The headman was now engulfed in new worries. He turned to us, beginning to complain as a last resort:
“Look, the village was raided just this morning at seven. They made announcements through the village loudspeaker saying, ‘No one should leave their homes, identity checks will be conducted, the houses will be searched.’ My cousin Halil Müştak’s house is below the village. He vacated it 10 years ago to move to Cizre. The house is in ruins. Its door is tied with cloth. Inside, they showed me a bag. It contained five hand grenades and several demolition charges. They made a report and had me sign it. They even took my photo with the bags. Now I’ve given them the key to the school. How am I to know they won’t plant something inside?”
“Come on, let’s go and look at the school.”
This was the suggestion of the deputies. Everyone stood up together.
The school was surrounded by soldiers. Inside, there were broken desks, a chart of the seasons on the walls, and a photograph of [Kemal] Atatürk. The school’s doors had not been opened for a year. The headman had been notified some time ago that the school was to be vacated. The primary school was to be used as a police station.
While touring the school, headman Abdurrahman Müştak related the difficulties he’d faced through the years.
In 1982, they had started collecting weapons from the villages. They demanded 40 weapons from Yeşilyurt itself and 20 from each of its hamlets. When they couldn’t find 180 weapons, the soldiers hung the headman by his arms from the branches of the mulberry tree near the village fountain. They had done many similar things since that day. The villagers had never said anything about any of it. Not until the most recent incident.
‘JOURNALISTS WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PKK’
On 24 January 1989, the incident of the Yeşilyurt villagers being fed faeces was published in detail in Cumhuriyet, even making the front page. Hasan Cemal had kept his promise.
The situation stirred up a storm. The opposition, albeit somewhat timidly, seemed to be rousing itself. Prime Minister Turgut Özal asked, “What if it’s not true?”
The day after the news appeared in the newspaper, the Director-General of Security, Sabahattin Çakmakoğlu, the Governor of the State of Emergency Region Hayri Kozakçıoğlu, and the Gendarmerie Public Order Commander, Lieutenant General Hulusi Sayın, held a joint press conference in Ankara.
A major operation had begun stretching from Istanbul to Cizre, and supposedly the claim was made to sabotage this operation, named “Unity”.
Lieutenant General Sayın even said, “Some newspaper reporters seem to think it’s their duty to write in support of the PKK, against the state. Some of them might be doing this unknowingly, with incorrect information, but others write for special reasons.”
General Sayın also stated that he had ordered an investigation immediately after reading the news article, and simultaneously, he announced results of the investigation:
“The incident will be examined in great detail, and no one will be protected. You will also learn through the statements to be made that many of these allegations are incorrect.”
Nearly a week after the news broke, the name of the major accused of feeding the villagers faeces came out; Cafer Çağlayan.
The major hadn’t even been called for questioning yet.
No one had yet visited the Yeşilyurt villagers to ask, “Were you fed faeces?”
But for writing of the incident, they were nearly ready to declare me a member of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).
Journalists also questioned Governor Kozakçıoğlu about the allegations. “They should go to the prosecutor,” said Kozakçıoğlu. The Yeşilyurt villagers had already gone to the prosecutor. But what could the prosecutor do? He sent a letter to the 12th Gendarmerie Commando Battalion Command asking for the name of the unit commander involved in the operation on Yeşilyurt village related to the incident of two policemen being killed.
The response came: “The identity of the commander involved in the operation is Cafer Çağlayan.”
Signature: J.Cmdr. Maj. Cafer Çağlayan…
Such was the state of the State of Emergency…
When Major Çağlayan went to the Cizre Courthouse to give his statement, journalists reached for their cameras. A captain by his side drew his gun and pointed it at a journalist:
“If you try to take a photo, you’ll take a bullet to the forehead.”
Three days after the story broke, the Interior Minister, Mustafa Kalemli, made a statement saying, “The State of Emergency Governorate and the Gendarmerie Public Security Command have investigated and found these allegations to be untrue.”
However, the investigation was still ongoing; the major hadn’t even left the courthouse corridors yet, and the villagers were detailing the incident to the prosecutor with all its intricacies. At the same time, Interior Minister Mustafa Kalemli was convicted at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for the act of forcefeeding faeces.
FIRST INCIDENT TO SECURE CONVICTION
In fact, this was not the first incident of security forces feeding faeces to Kurdish villagers, but it was the first case to be documented immediately after the event and the first resulting, after a long legal battle, in a perpetrator being convicted.
Despite the confirmation of our report’s accuracy both in national and international law, accusations of “traitor” have rung in my ears at every briefing given to date, whether in the halls of the General Staff or anywhere else.