1. Definition
Truth Justice Memory Center bases its definition of enforced disappearance on the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, where enforced disappearance is defined as “(…) the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.” This definition treats enforced disappearances as a criminal act of state in accordance with historical and global phenomena and patterns. Truth Justice Memory Center adopts the same definition as it fits the local manifestation of this phenomenon in Turkey.
There are different approaches as to what the status of the forcibly disappeared will be once the body is found and delivered to the family of the disappeared. An international consensus on the aforementioned status does not exist either. Certain experienced rights organizations, academics and legal experts who work on this subject matter claim that once the body is found, the disappeared status is no longer applicable. Whereas other organizations, academics and legal experts claim that the person should continue to be treated as forcibly disappeared. Truth Justice Memory Center has adopted the latter view on the status of the disappeared once the body is found, following the prevalent view in Argentina, where exemplary work has been produced around this subject. This view is more appropriate to our work since it strives to document and to reveal the torture of uncertainty the relatives of the forcibly disappeared endure, to recognize the rights violations of the relatives of the forcibly disappeared during the investigation period, and to document the specifics of the execution carried out. As a result, we have included everyone who has been forcibly disappeared in our database, regardless of whether their body were found or not. We have tried to mark those whose bodies were found and the manner in which they have been found as detailed as possible.
2. Sources
The database does not yet contain information on everyone who was forcibly disappeared following the September 12, 1980 military coup. It is created to contain information on everyone forcibly disappeared. Before we have started preparing the database, we have reviewed all previous studies to reach a non-conclusive number on how many people were forcibly disappeared since the military coup of 1980. According to our preliminary estimates, 1353 people were forcibly disappeared. The information on the disappeared shared in this database either come from our own data collection or verified data (see our verification method below) collected from other sources. The documents consolidated in our database are from the following sources, ranked according to our methodological choices:
2.1 Primary Sources
2.1.1 Interviews:
We have conducted semi-structured interviews primarily with the relatives of the forcibly disappeared, along with lawyers, rights advocates and activists, which make up one of our most important data sources. Since December 2017, we have conducted 248 interviews, 188 of which were in Kurdish and 60 in Turkish languages. We took written consent of our interviewees on how much of the information attained from these interviews could be shared with whom and through which media. The data available on our database reflects the consent of our interviewees. Our work is ethically guided by ‘do no harm’ principle; therefore, even where the interviewee has consented, we have tried not to share any information that could potentially cause harm. We would like to take this opportunity to thank once again the relatives of the forcibly disappeared who have agreed to be interviewed and shared their excruciating experiences with us. We would also like to extend our gratitude to Yakınlarını Kaybeden Ailelerle Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Derneği (YAKAY-DER: Association for Help and Support for the Families of the Disappeared) and Mezopotamya Yakınlarını Kaybeden Ailelerle Yardımlaşma Dayanışma ve Kültür Derneği (MEYA-DER: Association for Help and Support for the Families of the Disappeared and Culture) who have supported us throughout our fieldwork.
2.1.2. Legal Documents:
Another important source for our data were the legal documents, to which we had access via lawyers who have been following enforced disappearance law suits for years or with the support of those who brought the law suit. When discrepancies arose with other sources, we have used the information available in legal documents. This choice is motivated by the likelihood of legal data to be given more credibility over other data sources if there were to be court judgments against impunity in the future (eg. in cases where time lapse needs to be calculated for statute of limitation or in determination of the suspects). Within legal data, we have prioritized final decisions of and submissions made to European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Lawsuits in local courts, investigation files, complaint petitions, written proceedings and reports also composed our legal data. When there is a discrepancy between the legal documents and the testimony of the relatives of the forcibly disappeared, legal data was prioritized but the data from the testimony was also highlighted. We would like to extend our gratitude once again to the lawyers representing victims’ families and the families of the disappeared.
2.1.3. Rights organizations reports/documents
We have made use of reports and studies published by other organizations who have worked on enforced disappearances before us, most importantly İnsan Hakları Derneği (İHD: Human Rights Association), and others such as Yakınlarını Kaybeden Ailelerle Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Derneği (YAKAY-DER), Mezopotamya Yakınlarını Kaybeden Ailelerle Yardımlaşma Dayanışma ve Kültür Derneği (MEYA-DER) ve Türkiye İnsan Hakları Vakfı (TİHV: Human Rights Foundation of Turkey). We have also profited from the experience Cumartesi İnsanları (Saturday People, formerly known as Saturday Mothers) has accumulated over the years.
2.1.4. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) reports:
We have used reports prepared by the TBMM, mostly by The Committee on Human Rights Inquiry as primary sources, though they were not many in number.
2.2. Secondary Sources
2.2.1. Information published in print media:
Through archive scanning, we have compiled information from different print media published during and after when enforced disappearances occured. We compare them with other sources and use them as secondary sources.
2.2.2 Information from online sources and news websites:
Information on enforced disappearances gathered from online sources and news websites are compiled, compared and used as secondary sources.
2.2.3 Secondary literature:
Information gathered from literature review of books of journalism, research, testimonies and memoirs, especially those from 1990s make up our last category of secondary sources.
3. Data Verification
Truth Justice Memory Center verifies the information before sharing it publicly. If the collected data cannot be verified by a primary source, we check and compare it with data from at least two other independent sources.
4. Persons on Trial in Local Courts Related to Enforced Disappearance Cases
We indicate the names of the suspects who continue to be tried in the case files opened in local courts that we had access to while creating the database. A very small number of these cases, most of which were filed in local courts nearly 20 years after the date of the incident, were/are closed with acquittals. For legal reasons, we remove from the public database the names of those people who are on trial in these cases and whose acquittals are finalized after the appeal process is completed.
5. Information Sharing and Collaboration
Out of respect for the forcibly disappeared, we tried to make sure that the data we share is verified. However, no matter how thoroughly we have been working on our sources, there might be missing or incorrect information presented in the database. We highly appreciate your input to the database, please contact us through the form in the Get Involved page to correct or add information.
Hafıza Merkezi strives to support and make the deeds of the victim relatives, human rights organizations, activists, lawyers and researchers working on enforced disappearances more visible and accessible. Thus, we welcome all information sharing and collaboration proposals.
