We Will Not Get Used to the Killing of Children!
4 December 2020
On 30 November 2020, 16-year-old Özcan Erbaş went on a walk with three friends to have a picnic and to gather acorns in Hakkari’s Derecik District, Yeşilova Neighborhood. He was shot in the back by gunfire from the border zone. He died. According to eyewitness accounts, the incident took place about 400 meters from the Turkish-Iraqi border and no warning was issued by soldiers serving on the border post before the gunfire.
Right after the incident, Hakkari Governor’s Office said in a statement that “persons who attempted to enter the country from abroad in an adjacent area located in the prohibited military zone were verbally warned and upon receiving no answers to this warning a person lost his life due to gunfire into the air while judicial and administrative investigations have been initiated into the incident.” Özcan’s uncle, who arrived at the scene upon hearing about the incident, said that the soldiers did not help Özcan who was lying in a pool of blood and he had to carry his niece to the road on his back. He stated that Özcan sustained a gunshot wound on his back and lost his life in the hospital.
Each year people continue to lose their lives or are wounded as law enforcement officers arbitrarily open fire in border zones located in pre-dominantly Kurdish areas. Since no effective, objective and transparent investigations are initiated into such cases of death and injury, violations cannot be prevented and become persistent. In such violation cases where the perpetrator is a public official, the policy of immunity that has long been rendered a judicial culture by the state encourages public officials to use firearms in a reckless manner.
We, as human rights defenders, will not get used to this state of affairs! We reiterate once again that we will fight to seek justice for each child who has been deprived of his/her rights to life and development. We do remind all those responsible that Turkey is a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which guarantees the right to life and the right to development of all children.
We call on the Turkish State, as per its duties and responsibilities set forth in the Convention, to unconditionally take sides with children in the death of each child and to initiate an effective criminal and administrative investigation into the killing of 16-year-old Özcan Erbaş and identify all public officials responsible for his death.
Human Rights Association
Children’s Rights Commission