We would like to express our satisfaction with the call of Zeid Raad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to Turkey on giving independent investigators, including UN staff, unimpeded access to Cizre.
On the statement by High Commissioner, the State’s duty of protecting its people from acts of violence has been emphasized, as well as the importance of respecting human rights and the international laws forbidding acts of torture, extrajudicial executions, disproportional lethal violence and arbitrary detentions.
We have previously mentioned occurrence of countless human rights violations, notably the violation of right to life during the 79- day-long martial curfew, declared on December 12th 2015 in Cizre. Especially during the basement massacres, we have made numerous calls primarily to UN and European Parliament, as well as to many other international organizations on investigation into transfer of the wounded civilians to hospitals and mass civilian massacres.
It’s a fact that no citizens, including politicians and independent CSOs, were allowed to access Cizre during the martial curfew, and evidences were tried to spoil after the operations. The CSOs entering Cizre after the martial curfew was lifted during daytime to observe and document the violations were targeted personally by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
During the martial curfews declared in the region, particularly in Cizre, countless crimes against humanity have been and are still being committed by state forces, functioning in the region. It must be noted, these crimes shall not be left with impunity. We’d like to recur that crimes against humanity committed in Cizre, documented thoroughly in the report prepared by our party and independent CSOs, shall be accounted for.
We expect UN to pursue this decision. We also expect the Turkish government to allow the investigator, commissioned by UN, to reveal the civilian deaths and social destruction particularly in Cizre, as well as other martially besieged towns. As Peoples’ Democratic Party, we are willing to share documents and information in our possession with the forthcoming investigators. The statements made by Minister of Foreign Affairs yesterday, are far from reflecting the truth. The fact that neither CSOs nor the politicians were allowed to the besieged towns is publicly known. In Cizre, particularly during the basement massacres, the requests for investigation by many national and international CSOs were rejected. The statements by Spokesman of the Ministry pursue a goal of normalizing the horrific experiences of the locals. As Peoples’ Democratic Party, we want the public to know that we are going to be a close pursuer of this process.
Çağlar Demirel & İdris Baluken
HDP Group Deputy Co-Chairs
May 11, 2016