Turkish soldiers are being accused of having used a 15-year-old Kurdish boy as a human shield during a recent military operation in the Lice (Licê) district of Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır (Amed). The incident occurred on the night of 25 May during a siege that also claimed the life of Kurdish civilian and father of four Mehmet Yıldırım in the Ortaç (Nenyas) neighbourhood of the town.
Eyewitnesses reported that soldiers took the teenager by force to shield themselves as they searched the house during the raid. “They forced my son in front of them, moving from room to room, pointing guns at us,” the teenager’s mother stated.
The operation has sparked a significant outcry, particularly because it led to the death of a civilian. Yıldırım’s family was not informed of his death officially, but learnt of it from a social media post by Turkey’s Interior Minister, highlighting an apparent lack of sensitivity on the part of the Turkish authorities. In his post, Yerlikaya employed a vengeful tone, celebrating the operation with phrases like “The blood of our martyrs has not been left unavenged! A “grey category” terrorist has been eliminated in Operation “BOZDOĞAN-40”, conducted in the Lice district of Diyarbakır province!”
By using the term “grey category”, Yerlikaya refers to a publicly available wanted list of alleged terrorists of all categories, including Gülenists, leftists, Kurds and ISIS. This list lumps together a wide range of government opponents with the likes of ISIS, presumably to legitimise the government’s operations against these opponents in the eyes of the world. Mehmet Yıldırım is indeed included in the list, although no concrete evidence of his alleged crimes is offered on the Interior Ministry website.
Moreover, the list features images of the individuals in Kurdish traditional costume, which could easily be mistaken for guerrilla uniforms, hinting at a governmental effort to steer public perception toward incorrect conclusions. Yıldırım, however, is depicted in western clothing.
The constitutionality and ethical implications of publicly listing individuals as terrorists without definitive court convictions were legally challenged in 2022 when a lawyer by the name of Özgür Yılmaz appeared on the “Terrorist Wanted List” managed by the Interior Ministry’s Rewards Commission. This prompted Yılmaz’s own lawyer to seek legal recourse, arguing that the listing process, which categorises individuals based on perceived threat levels and promises financial rewards for information leading to their capture, violated constitutional rights and lacked a legal foundation. The Director of Public Prosecutions at the Council of State supported this challenge, asserting that the authority granted to the Rewards Commission to make such listings was unlawfully broad and unconstitutional, endangering the personal safety and legal rights of the individuals listed.
