Turkey’s Authorities Tight-Lipped Amid Families’ Quest to Find Missing Ones

Families’ efforts to find their missing ones bogged down in Turkish Parliament as the ruling party killed off a commission inquiry.

In early July, Saturday Mothers came together with the families of six men who recently went missing.

The Hearing

For months, families of six people, who mysteriously went missing in February this year, have sought in vain to get, at least, a shred of information from authorities about their possible whereabouts. And for months, judging by the unbridgeable chasm between words and deeds, authorities appear to be dodging their quest, deflecting any responsibility to find them.

Families of Gokhan Turkmen, Yasin Ugan, Ozgur Kaya, Erkan Irmak, Mustafa Yilmaz and Salim Zeybek were disappointed once again last week when lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) killed off a parliamentary committee inquiry to enlighten the case of enforced disappearances.

All the men were former public servants, working in different sectors. Between Feb. 6 and 22, they were, according to the account of their families and human rights organizations, abducted by unknown men believed to have ties to Turkey’s security forces.