Mazlum Çelik, a 24-year-old Kurdish man from Turkey’s south-eastern Kurdish-majority Urfa (Riha) province, was reportedly abducted and tortured for 11 hours by individuals claiming to be counterterrorism police.
The father of three, who runs an electronic store in Urfa, was taken on 14 July to an unknown cave where he was subjected to electric torture and death threats. Çelik had been abducted by three individuals who put a sack over his head and forced him into a vehicle.
Çelik’s ordeal began a week prior when he was called to testify at the Urfa Police Station due to a complaint against him. After his testimony, he was contacted by an unknown number and asked to work with them, a proposition he vehemently declined.
On the day of the abduction, in the cave, Çelik was interrogated about connections with the ‘organisation’. Each denial was met with increased physical abuse, Çelik told Mezopotamya Agency. The torturers used electric shocks and even dug a grave inside the cave to intimidate him. They threatened to bury him there, claiming that no one would find his body and that all state apparatus, including judges and prosecutors, were under their control.
The torture continued for 11 hours, during which Çelik was beaten with hoses and electrocuted intermittently. One of the torturers, referred to as ‘the president’, suggested shooting Çelik in the head and leaving a note branding him a ‘traitor’ [for the organisation]. They even proposed staging a scene where Çelik would be photographed with two policemen dressed as guerrillas, making it easy to convince the public that he was killed by the organisation.
Çelik was released near the place where he had been abducted. Despite being semi-conscious and physically weak, he managed to reach home. Çelik obtained a battering report from the hospital and attempted to file a complaint at police stations in two different districts, however, both stations refused to take his complaint, suggesting that they were unable to deal with counterterrorism police.
Çelik remains undeterred at the non-cooperation of the police and plans to seek legal support from legal and rights organisations and file a criminal complaint at the prosecutor’s office. He has also approached the Human Rights Association (İHD) and Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD) Urfa branches for legal support.
