HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA

Şimuni Diril, a Chaldean couple believed to have disappeared in the village of Mehre in Şırnak on January 7, 2020, was found murdered by their children on March 17. Hurmüz Diril, who turns 76 today, has been missing for five years. His daughter, Gülcan Diril Üzümcü, said, "My father's age remains 71. This is murder, and my father is missing. I do not accept its normalization. As Assyrians and Chaldeans, meeting our demand for justice is not a favor, but an urgent necessity."

We are Silivri's mandatory visitors. For now, some of us, but potentially all of us. Although we cannot fully know or understand what our loved ones in prison are going through, there is one thing we have learned through experience: what it means to be an intimate of a prisoner. And I quickly learned the number one rule of being an intimate of a prisoner: to wait.

The Syriac community in Turkey, which has only one kindergarten, is unable to benefit from the right to education in their mother tongue. Thanks to the initiative of Adem Coşkun, an expert on the Syriac people and president of the Turabdin Institute, the first Syriac language course in the history of the Republic was launched in March in Midyat. Coşkun, who taught 29 students over the three-month course, stated, “The Syriac people must preserve their mother tongue.”

Syrian Armenian journalist Kevork Almassian: "In Kessab, a town historically home to a vibrant Armenian population, the community has largely fled, fearing a fate similar to that of Alawites in neighbouring areas."

Following the 3-year and 9-month prison sentence given to Van Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayor Abdullah Zeydan, another DEM Party municipality was appointed a trustee. Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality also faced two trustee appointments in 2016 and 2019. We spoke to Serra Bucak, Co-Mayor of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality, about the social and political consequences of the trusteeship practices after Zeydan was sentenced to prison. Regarding the trustee appointments, Bucak said, ‘Even though the government persistently and stubbornly does not learn lessons from undemocratic methods, the people have always said and will say, 'No matter what you do, we are on the side of the just struggle.' The government must now digest and accept the will of the people and give up these anti-democratic practices."

In the 19th century, as wage labour relations became widespread in different sectors, crafts, agriculture and then industry, both the capital and the working class in the Ottoman Empire, which, like every empire, was built on a class society, had a multi-communal, multi-religious and multi-lingual structure. According to Çetinkaya, there is a rupture that must be mentioned here: ‘the construction of the nation-state, the process of nationalisation and the extermination of different communities in various ways through methods such as ethnic cleansings, genocides and exchange’. This political project also meant cutting off important elements from the working class and the working class movement, and cutting the way for socialist and Marxist movements.

Turkey lived a period believing that torture and ill-treatment fell behind, convinced by this showcase. Yet, this year alone, 692 people or their relatives have applied to the HRFT with allegations of torture and ill-treatment. This is only the number of those who consider applying to a human rights institution in case of victimization, and who have the power and means to do so. Likewise, 2024 was a year in which freedom of assembly and demonstration was largely ignored. According to the data of the HRA Documentation Unit, at least 4,368 people were took into custody under torture and ill-treatment as a result of the intervention of law enforcement forces in peaceful protests.

Andrey X, as he prefers to use the name on social media, is a Russian-Israeli journalist and activist living in Palestine. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he immigrated to Tel Aviv, which turned his world upside down and also gave him an opportunity to delve into Israel-Palestine conflicts. Now he is covering unjust practices in the West Bank. We have talked about conditions, the current situation, and importance of journalism in the West Bank.

Gisèle Pelicot, 72 years old, has won so much admiration and respect for the way she handled the judicial process concerning the gang rape of which she was the victim, that she has become a symbol of courage in recent years, going beyond 2024. “Shame must change sides” she said, “it's not us who should be ashamed, it's them. I don't want any woman who has been raped to feel shame anymore."

One of the distinctive features of this year is that the number of children who are out of education despite being of compulsory education age is at the highest level of the last three years. Income inequality has reached its highest level in the last 18 years, signalling the severity of the economic crisis in education. 42 out of every 100 children are poor. ERG's report reveals that the number of students between the ages of 6-17 who are out of education increased by 38.4 per cent compared to the previous year.