Families of the victims of forced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions reacted to the official indifference and inaction over the confessions by a former Turkish National Intelligence (MİT) official.
Mehmet Eymür, former chief of the counter terror section at MİT, recently said in an interview that people have been forcibly disappeared by the intelligence agency, that torture must not be considered a criminal offence if it is used to get information from ‘stubborn types’, and that there had been fatalities in some cases.
İkbal Eren Yarıcı, sister of Hayrettin Eren who was forcibly disappeared on 21 November 1980, protested at the authorities inaction over Eymür’s confessions.
“We have been saying that forced disappearance and torture are official policies. Mehmet Eymür, an official of the Turkish National Intelligence, has now confirmed this,” she said.
“He has made statements admitting to having tortured and killed people. And yet, Mehmet Eymür is still at large. No legal authority has called him in for questioning… We demand that the state, which has adopted policies that enable systematic torture and disappearances in custody, sign international conventions that prevent forced disappearances. Human rights violations should not be subjected to a statute of limitations. We demand that the constitution is modified to exclude such a limitation.”
Mikail Kırbayır, brother of Cemil Kırbayır who had been forcibly disappeared on 13 September 1980, a day after the 12 September military coup in Turkey, said the judicial inaction over Eymür’s confessions was yet more evidence that the perpetrators of forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions were protected by the state.
“These confessions are the confirmation and proof of what we have been saying,” he said.
“Why haven’t the prosecutors or the Ministry of Justice launched an investigation in relation to these confessions? It is obvious that the murderers and torturers are protected through a state policy.”
The legal case regarding the disappearance of Cemil Kırbayır was closed on 9 May 2021 as the court ruled that the statute of limitations expired. The court decision came 10 years after a parliamentary commission concluded that Cemil Kırbayır was killed under torture while in custody alongside three other individuals.
