English


ASSOCIATION FOR SOLIDARITY AND SUPPORT FOR RELATIVES OF DISAPPEARED PERSONS
(YAKAY-DER)

YAKAY-DER, a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Federation Against Enforced Disappearances (FEMED), was founded in İstanbul in 2001. It works to research the causes of death and disappearance of people who were killed by unnatural causes and whose deaths can be considered violations of the right to life, people whose deaths were the result of various operations, and people who cannot be contacted and who disappeared while under custody; YAKAY-DER also works to provide solidarity and assistance to the relatives of the disappeared.  

The founders of our organization include the current Member of Parliament for Iğdır, Pervin BULDAN, as well as Hanım TOSUN, Velat DEMİR, Tomris ÖZDEN, Zübeyde TEPE, Hasan KARAKOÇ and Şehmuz EKİNÇİ.

Other goals of the association:

•    To establish and develop relationships with civil society organizations;
•    To translate these relationships into mutual support and solidarity for the sake of the relatives of disappeared persons;
•    To contribute to legal battles within this context, and to work to strengthen the authority of human rights in Turkey and the rest of the world;
•    To conduct projects in accordance with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and other international human rights treaties, documents, values, and humanitarian legal principles by accepting that human rights is a universal value above every sort of political ideology or worldview;
•    To procure statistical data and documents about people who died for various reasons, people left handicapped, and people who remain in a state of disappearance in this context, and to categorize them;
•    To conduct the projects necessary to bring people handicapped by a variety of reasons back into social life by developing social and economic support for them;
•    To establish centers for social assistance for the families of people who died or disappeared, and to coordinate all kinds of domestic and international activities in order to achieve the establishment of collective peace concerning these events.

Activities of the Association:

The activities of our association can be arranged thusly:
•    To conduct all kinds of research, observation, and legal proceedings concerning the disappeared, the dead, and others afflicted by disability; To be active in this capacity in every way possible in order to facilitate the establishment of collective peace;
•    To conduct open forums, conferences, seminars, panels, symposiums, and other meetings and demonstrations, and to arrange concerts, open exhibits, plan competitions, give awards, and make publications in line with the goals of the association;
•    To work on our own and with other organizations to conduct campaigns, common projects, and meetings;
•    To conduct research about people who died for various reasons, people left handicapped, and people who remain in a state of disappearance; to compile and archive information and documents; to support initiatives by official institutions and organizations to learn the fate of the disappeared;
•    To share the results of projects about the disappeared and the dead with the public by way of various press and publishing institutions;
•    To defend the rights of members, and to encourage and strengthen support and solidarity among them; to provide the necessary legal assistance in situations in which the families of the disappeared and the members of the association have suffered human rights violations or are in need.

Past Projects

Since the foundation of our organization in 2001, some of the most important projects we have conducted include:

Documentation
Our documentation project titled Their Hands Were So Warm I and II was released as a book. It was conducted in four pilot regions, Diyarbakır, Batman, Mardin, and İstanbul, with the goal of locating people who were killed in unresolved murders and people who disappeared while under custody.

The 3rd Euro-Mediterranean Meeting for Families of the Disappeared
YAKAY-DER, in conjunction with the Euro-Mediterranean Federation Against Enforced Disappearances (FEMED), the Human Rights Association, and the Mothers for Peace, planned the Third Euro-Mediterranean Meeting for Families of the Disappeared.

The meeting resulted in a declaration calling upon states to apologize to the relatives of the disappeared. Concerning Turkey, and in keeping with YAKAY-DER’s aims and projects, the declaration emphasized the need “for the exhumation of bodies from mass graves in Kurdish cities, for the immediate commencement of an independent program intended to verify their identities, and for the establishment of a centralized database that contains the genetic information of the bodies and the families of the disappeared.”

Criminal Indictments
Since 2002, YAKAY-DER has been engaged in legal battles to reveal the perpetrators of unresolved murders and disappearances under custody as well as to bring those responsible to justice.

Firstly, in 2002, the relatives of the disappeared produced an indictment in İstanbul for Süleyman Demirel (former President), Doğan Güreş (former Chief of Defense), Tansu Çiller (former Prime Minister), İsmet Sezgin (former Minister of the Interior), Necati Özgen (retired general), Teoman Koman (retired general), Hasan Kundakçı (retired lieutenant general), Atilla Kurtaran (retired lieutenant general), Adnan Doğu (retired general), Kemal Çelik (former General Director of Security), Saffet Arıkan Bedük (former General Director of Security), Hayri Kozakçıoğlu (former Governor under the OHAL state of exception), Ünal Erkan (former Governor under the OHAL state of exception), ve Mehmet Ağar (Member of Parliament for Elazığ). Following the indictment, a case was opened against the members of the association.

In 2008, YAKAY-DER, in conjunction with various non-governmental organizations, petitioned to intervene in the Ergenekon case.

Again in August of 2010 our association produced an indictment demanding the İstanbul Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor to try those responsible for unresolved murders and disappearances under custody, based on the words of Vice Admiral Atilla Kıyat, who said “Murder was a state policy.” Trials were demanded for many people including Süleyman Demirel, Tansu Çiller, Mesut Yılmaz, Necmettin Erbakan, Doğan Güreş, İsmail Hakkı Karadayı, Hayri Kozakçıoğlu, Necati Çetinkaya, Ünal Erkan, Necati Bilican, Teoman Koman, Aydın İlter, Fikret Özden Boztepe, Abdülkadir Aksu, Murat Başesgioğlu, Mehmet Ağar, Meral Akşener, Nahit Menteşe, Mehmet Gazioğlu and İsmet Sezgin. Though the court decided not to prosecute cases for the aforementioned individuals, a case was opened for Atilla Kıyat. Kıyat’s trial is ongoing.  

Work for a Truth Commission
The directors of the association regularly participate in the work of The Center for Truth, Justice, Memory.