A delegation en route to retrieve the bodies of murdered Kurdish journalists Nazim Daştan and Cîhan Bilgin has been halted at the Habur border crossing in southeastern Turkey since Monday afternoon. Turkish authorities have cited a “broken X-ray system” as the reason for the delay, while the journalists’ families allege it is a “deliberate technical failure” aimed at preventing the delegation from crossing the border.
The delegation, which includes the families of the murdered Kurdish journalists, DEM Party MP Kamuran Tanhan, members of the Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG), the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD), and civil society representatives, is awaiting clearance to cross into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) to retrieve the bodies of Daştan and Bilgin. The journalists were killed in a Turkish drone strike on 19 December while reporting on the clashes in northeast Syria.
Fırat Taşkın, an executive member of the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD) and part of the delegation, stated, “Only the gate we are standing at is closed.” He emphasised that, in addition to the emotional distress caused to the families of the murdered journalists, the bodies of the deceased are being disrespected, as they have been waiting at the border “for a long time”.
DEM Party MP Tanhan stated that he believes the delegation is being detained for political reasons, describing the situation as a “deprivation of liberty and obstruction of freedom of movement”. He noted that only their group had been prevented from crossing the border, claiming there were “no obstacles at civilian border crossings”.
The bodies of Daştan and Bilgin were transferred to the Semalka border crossing between Syria and the KRI yesterday, following a mourning ceremony in Qamishli (Qamişlo) in northeastern Syria, attended by thousands of people.
The Dicle Firat Journalists Association (DFG) has condemned the stoppage of the delegation at the border, calling the prevention of receiving the bodies “arbitrary under various pretexts”. DFG emphasised that “international law is being violated by withholding the bodies” and stated that “every citizen has the right to be buried according to their beliefs and traditions, and those who have lost relatives are entitled to mourn within this right”.
