There are Concerns that HüSeyin Galip KüçüKöZyiğit may Have been Forcibly Disappeared
Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit, a former Prime Ministry Rapporteur who was dismissed after the 2016 coup attempt, has been missing since December 29, 2020. His family, whose efforts to find Küçüközyiğit have been unsuccessful, believes he was abducted and forcibly disappeared. Authorities have stated that Küçüközyiğit is not officially in custody. Turkish authorities must quickly investigate to determine where Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit is being held and immediately inform his family.
Additional Information
Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit is a former public servant who was dismissed from his position as Prime Ministry Rapporteur following the July 2016 coup attempt. Küçüközyiğit was tried in 2018 and May 2019 and sentenced to six years and three months in prison for ‘membership in a terrorist organization’ under Article 314/2 of the Turkish Penal Code. Following the conviction, he was released on judicial control conditions after being held in pre-trial detention for six months. The appeal against the decision is currently awaiting resolution at the Regional Court of Justice. At the time of his suspected forced disappearance, Küçüközyiğit was working as a translator in Ankara and was in daily contact with his two children living in Kocaeli.
Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit “’s daughter told Amnesty International” that not hearing from her father was unusual. Nursena Küçüközyiğit, who reported her father’s disappearance to the relevant unit of the Kocaeli Police Department on December 31 “”, later went to Ankara “” and obtained camera footage from the office building where her father worked in Ankara. The footage contains evidence suggesting that Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit “was followed after leaving the building on December 29”. Nursena Küçüközyiğit stated that since the date of her father’s disappearance, she has been given conflicting information about her father’s car by three different police teams on three occasions. The location of the vehicle has still not been determined.
Hundreds of cases of forced disappearances occurred in Turkey throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In recent years, these cases have been rare, but in 2019, at least six people – Salim Zeybek, Yasin Ugan, Özgür Kaya, Erkan Irmak, Mustafa Yılmaz, and Gökhan Türkmen – disappeared in a manner that could be considered forced disappearance. Months after their disappearance, it was discovered that these individuals were being held at the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the Ankara Provincial Police Department. Some later described in court the conditions under which they were forcibly disappeared. In February 2020, Gökhan Türkmen stated that he was subjected to ill-treatment, torture, and threats for 271 days, kept in a closed place with constant artificial light, forced to stand for unbearably long periods, and given very little food.
What is forced disappearance?
Victims of forced disappearance are individuals who disappear after being arrested, detained, abducted, or otherwise deprived of their liberty by state officials (or persons acting with the state’s authorization or acquiescence) who subsequently deny having taken these individuals or refuse to disclose their whereabouts. Forced disappearances can sometimes also be carried out by non-state armed actors such as armed opposition groups. In any case, forced disappearance is a crime under international law. Although Turkey is not a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, it is a party to other human rights conventions that prohibit forced disappearance, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, and these conventions, along with customary international law, are binding on Turkey.
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Source: https://amnesty.org.tr/
