Firing at People in Hedik Village, Diyarbakir

For the reason that on 22 August 2008, Friday around 18.15 in the village Hedik belonging to Lice administrative district within the province of Diyarbakir;  the settlement areas, houses and the people there having been being fired at, continuously and randomly for half an hour by soldiers, village guards and task forces and because of the increase in traffic of phone calls, claiming that the village was being kept in siege for about 15 hours, a human rights commission have gone to the village and have mutually prepared the report with us that we shall present to you.

Village Hedik belonging to Lice administrative district within the province of Diyarbakir was evacuated by force in 1988. Some of the villagers began to live under the unbearable circumstances after having gone to metropolises like Antalya, Istanbul, Adana, Izmir and especially Diyarbakir.

 

From 1999 on with the conflicts decreasing relatively in the region, some of the villagers started to come back to their villages. With the summer of 2003 about 30-40 households came to the village, started to live in tents, cultivated their gardens, grew tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, aubergines and beans for selling them especially in Lice or in Diyarbakir to make money for buying firewood, coal to heat their shanties in metropolis. In order to be able to earn their keep, they established temporary tents on their land and started to live under these tents for a few months.

 

It is determined that in village Hedik belonging to Lice administrative district within the province of Diyarbakir in 22 August 2008, Friday, around 18.15 and 18.30; the settlement areas, houses and the people there including children have been fired at continuously and randomly for half an hour without any warning by a crowded group including village guards, soldiers and task forces, then everybody in the village had been forced to stay in their houses and the village had been closed to entrances and exits until the next day.

 

Recently it is observed  that the pressure upon the people especially who are back to their villages temporarily in the summer time or the ones that are trying to come back to their lands is getting increased in the region. Since the beginning of 2008, the Human Rights Violations are getting quite increased in our region. It is stressed that soldiers, task forces and village guards who are keeping on staying in villages beside the conflicts cause serious violations because of their attitudes to the villagers and citizens; including the violations on the right of living, the evident such as firing at houses or being subjected to howitzer attack are getting increased and these are violations and negative attitudes that shouldn’t be faced in a democratic country. The Human Rights Commission’s interference aiming to institute an inquiry was concluded positively and it is supposed through the inquiry that Public Prosecutor of Lice has instituted the responsible of incident will be determinated and pleaded because of attempting to kill someone with targeting without taking in consideration. We wish it will be the last after this violating the right of living that had done by security forces arbitrarily through violating the law and rules and again we stress that we are in suppose of a year without violations.

 

    * Aysel Tuğluk, Lawyer – DTP Diyarbakir MP
    * Ayla AKAT ATA, Lawyer – DTP Batman MP
    * Şeymus BAYHAN, Lawyer – The Chairman of the Lice Municipality
    * Nesip YILDIRIM ,Lawyer – The Vice President of the General Secretary of Mazlum-Der
    * Lawyer – The Chairman of the Diyarbakir Branch of the Human Rights Association
    * Selçuk MIZRAKLI, Doctor – The Chairman of the Chamber of Doctors of Diyarbakir
    * Rauf ÇİÇEK, Lawyer – the Member of Administrative Council of  The Bar of Lawyers of Diyarbakir
    * Nejdet ATALAY- the DTP Diyarbakir Provincial Chairman,
    * Zeynel Bağır –the DTP Diyarbakir Provincial Administrator.