Per Yakay-Der’s book “Sımsıcaktı Elleri 2” (How snug were their hands) and IHD’s plea file for disappearances under custody and unsolved murders published on 5th February 2011, Selahattin Gümürcü was a fifty-five-year-old married father of eight living in the Bismil district of Diyarbakır. A week before his disappearance, the village of one of his daughters had been burnt down and Selahattin Gümürcü had been threatened by village guards when he tried to collect his daughters belongings from the her house in the village. On 25th November 1996, he was last seen collecting payment from a buyer at the marketplace. Since then, he has not been heard from or seen, nor have his bodily remains been found.

His family applied to the Human Rights Association on 10th December 1996 for legal aid.