Kurdish Politicians in Danger of Extrajudicial Execution

On 28 September 1994, Mehmet Salih Sabuttekin was shot dead by two unidentified assailants as he left his home in Yüreir, a district of Adana in the south of Turkey. He was an official of HADEP in Yüreir. Eye-witnesses to the killing claimed that they saw a red Toros car in the area at the time of the shooting, which they recognized as belonging to the Anti-Terror Branch of Adana Police Headquarters.

When driving away from Mehmet Salih Sabuttekin's house after paying their respects to his family, the HADEP officials Samet Yaman and Rebih Çabuk noticed that their car was being followed.

The month before, on 13 August at 1am, four plainclothes police had come to the house of Rebih Çabuk, president of HADEP in Yüreir, to "check" that he was resident there. He was not at home at the time, but his wife reported that the police, two of whom were female officers, made her get into a car and drove her around the town for two hours while subjecting her to threats and insults and interrogating her about who visited their house.

On the morning of 3 October, Rebih Çabuk, Sefer Cerf, a HADEP board member in Yüreir, and Salih Satan, also a HADEP member, were having breakfast outside the Güneydou café in the Mutlu district of Adana. Reportedly they were approached by a blond man about aged about 30-35, of medium height who shot at them nine times. As people were rushing about in panic, the attacker ran down Street 1275 and met a thin dark boy aged about 15 at the bridge joining the Mutlu and ehit Erkut Akbay districts. They escaped on a motorcycle and a bicycle. Sever Cerf, father of eight children, died on the spot. Rebih Çabuk and Salih Satan, who was wounded in the leg, were taken to hospital, where Rebih Çabuk died. He was a building contractor, married with five children.

The following day, Ahmet Dizman, the man who had taken Rebih Çabuk and Salih Satan in his car to hospital, was abducted from his district by four armed men in plain clothes in a white Renault car (registration number 01 HC 644). He was taken outside the city where he was punched and kicked and hit with the butt of their weapons. As a result his jaw was broken. The Forensic Medicine Institute certified that he was unable to work for 25 days. According to his brother, the men who abducted Ahmet Dizman, said, "We are police officers", when asked who they were. The car is known as a police car. The men who beat him up accused Ahmet Dizman of attending the funerals of people killed in the district, questioned him about people in his neighbourhood and threatened to kill him if he did not become an informer. Ahmet Dizman has appealed to the public prosecutor that the four officers whom he described and who must have been on duty at that time be brought to justice.

On 8 October 1994, ehmuz Özgün, a HADEP board member for the Seyhan district of Adana, and 28 women went to Rebih Çabuk's house to pay their respects. The minibus in which they were travelling was stopped in the Yenidoan district of Adana by Adana police, and the women were insulted and slapped. ehmuz Özgün was taken to the PTT Evleri Police Station where he was interrogated about his address, place of work, etc, warned not to work for HADEP and subjected to death threats.

When being detained, HADEP members in Adana are threatened by the police not to go to the party offices. Their homes and workplaces are frequently raided and identity checks carried out. People entering the party building have been witnessed being filmed. The party building has been attacked once, although there are always police officers posted nearby, sometimes just a team of five, sometimes as many as 35 or 40. On 11 September, 86 HADEP members were detained to prevent them from participating in a peace demonstration. People found to carry party membership cards when being searched by the police are taken away, threatened and strongly advised to leave HADEP, which is a legal party.

This recent intensification of pressure against officials and members of HADEP coincides with the setting of a date on 20 September for by-elections. They need to be held because 22 seats in parliament have become vacant, 16 of them in the southeast where the population is mainly Kurdish, and 13 of these as a result of the banning of DEP in June this year. Another seat has been vacant since the killing of DEP deputy Mehmet Sincar on 4 September 1993 in Batman in circumstances strongly suggesting security force involvement. In the weeks preceding local elections in March of this year, a number of DEP candidates and activists have become victims of similar killings mainly in the southeast, before DEP decided to boycott the elections.

There have been several political killings in Adana in recent weeks in addition to the three described above and at least two cases of "disappearance". The victims were Kurds who had previously been under suspicion by the security forces because of their own political involvement or that of their families. They include Süleyman Önde, Haz-m Abdo, Maksut Polat, Metin Akta and Lokman Al-c-olu. Mehmet Turgay and Kas-m Alpsoy, a member of DEP, "disappeared" (see Urgent Action 207/94 of 31 May 1994 plus update). Yalç-n K-l-ç, the nephew of HADEP president Fadil K-l-ç in Suruç near Urfa, died in hospital on 2 October 1994 after eight days of interrogation under torture at Adana Police Headquarters (see Urgent Action 368/94 of 6 October 1994). On 13 October, Adana police killed 18-year-old Leyla Orhan [f] and As-m Aydemir, they claimed in a clash.

Hundreds of HEP/DEP/HADEP members are in detention or in prison, accused of supporting the guerrillas of the PKK, the Kurdish Workers' Party which since 1984 has been engaged in a violent conflict with the security forces. More than 13,000 people have been killed as a result. Seven DEP parliamentary deputies and one independent Kurdish deputy are also in prison being tried for their lives on charges of "separatism", while six others fled the country when their party, DEP, was banned in June.

Meanwhile the police have visited the homes of HADEP officials Maallah Kasaphan, Hakk-Kuru and Abdurrahman Yakut in Adana to "check" that they are living there. Samet Yaman, the President of HADEP in Adana and a journalist by profession, is receiving frequent death threats by telephone. It is feared that in particular these five officials of HADEP in Adana are now at risk of extrajudicial execution.