Mr. Akın Birdal, President of the Human Rights Association (HRA) was severely wounded during the armed assault of 12 May 1998 at the headquarters of the association. Previously, 14 members of the HRA, including officials and members, were murdered, and their perpetrators remained unidentified. As human rights defenders, we always stated clearly that within the 75 year history of the Turkish Republic, particularly after the 12 September Military Coup, the source of the attacks against dissidents has been the “system“. We have protested extra-legal organizations revealed especially after the Susurluk incident, as well as their actions which brought about human rights violations.
The State-related organizations, which were already known, but brought out in the open in the wake of the Susurluk case, started a campaign against the HRA, our President Mr. Akın Birdal and other dissidents by making use of several mass media. Through the alleged confessions by Şemdin SakIk, the armed assault against our President was prepared and legitimized. After the assault, the statements made by authorities, as well as the steps taken for the prosecution, aimed to distort the truth and protect the assailants. With his interpretation of “bargaining in the same fraction” and “internal conflict“, the Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz himself set the tone. On the other hand, “If there were those who wish to act in the name of the State, they would only damage the State” the Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit was quoted in a statement quite different from the PM. After the armed assault against our President, human rights defenders and all dissidents in Turkey declared to the national and international public through demonstrations that no assault will cause them to stop speaking out against human rights violations.
The international solidarity against this assault has also been quite effective. Consequently, the perpetrators of the armed assault against our President had to be revealed, even though they were only partially identified. Whereas, we are quite aware that without concluding the Susurluk case, which was disconnected and covered up, and bringing out in the open the gangs enmeshed in the State, those who, indeed, are accountable for the armed assault against our President, will be concealed, as in many other attacks. The revealed relations of the perpetrators, and especially the current position of Cengiz Ersever, a gendarmerie warrant-officer, who is said to have guided the assailants, clearly indicate the connections between the attack and State organization. As human rights defenders, we are of the opinion that the armed assault against our President may not be considered separate from other unresolved attacks, disappearances, burnt down villages, tortures, etc., which, we believe, derive from the same source. Therefore, we believe that the struggle against violations of rights must be carried out comprising all human rights violations. And, we repeat our demand once more:
The arrest of the assailants of the armed assault against our President, and revelation of their connections with the State are quite important. This situation must be regarded as a starting point of a new process, and the inquiry which was started with the Susurrus case, but, later discontinued and covered up, must be reopened to the extent that all of the other unresolved attacks are investigated.
It must not be forgotten that the identification of the perpetrators of the armed assault against our President –as individuals–, is due to the reaction and demands of democratic public opinion, and these demands of democratic public opinion should also lead to the elimination of the covert relations revealed after the Susurluk case.
HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION PRESS SERVICE