The Human Rights Association (IHD) Amed Branch held its action number 491 together with the families of the disappeared people.

Families and the IHD gather every week in Amed (like the Saturday’s Mothers do in Istanbul) demanding justice and truth for the hundreds of people who disappeared in the hands of the ’security forces’ of the State.

This week HEP Amed provincial chair, Vedat Aydin was commemorated. His body was found under a bridge on 7 July 1991, two days after he was detained at his house in Amed.

Speaking in Kurdish, IHD deputy chair, Raci Bilici, stressed that the murder of Vedat Aydin, one of the founders and executives of the IHD Diyarbakır Branch, was the confirmation that the State was pursuing a solution of the Kurdish question through war.

“Abduction, torture and attack on funerals were common those years”, he said referring to the ‘90s when many politicians, activists, unionists and students disappeared in custody.

Vedat Aydın, said Bilici, was targeted by JITEM (the special body of the gendarmerie) for his struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom. A struggle, Bilici, said, the Kurdish politician always carried out with legal means and openly.

Vedat Aydın

Hasan Yalçın, member of the disappeared Commission of the IHD, reminded the details of Vedat Aydın disappearance, murder and investigation.

Aydın had been elected provincial chairman of the HEP at the party’s congress held in Amed in June 1991.

He was taken into custody on 5 July 1991, while at his house.

In an interview given a while back, his wife, Şükran Aydın related the events of that night like this: “It was midnight when they came and knocked at our door to take him. We were familiar with the police, soldier, torture and arrests as we had already been taken into custody many times but until that time we didn’t know about JITEM”.

JITEM, as it was to become clear later, was a special force within the gendarmery. Most political disappearances were actually carried out by this force.

The shocking thing Şükran was telling is that “police had already raided our house and took him into custody many times before but the murder of Vedat Aydın was planned and arranged this time as they were acting different than the former times when they would search the house with many police and soldiers”.

Şükran remembered that “this time, they were less in number and they were moving extremely silently before coming to our house although I had already realized their coming due to the sounds of their radios. I knew the faces of most of them as I had seen them earlier. They said that they need Vedat to declare and nothing was unusual for us as he had been taken into custody many times before. However, the word counter-guerilla, which was being used very frequently later on that morning, made us understand everything. Although it was too late”.

JITEM made its first appearance

Şükran recalled applying to all authorities to know what happened to her husband, once it became clear this detention was not an ‘ordinary’ police procedure.

“They had taken him at a midnight on a Friday. - recalled Şükran - We looked for him everywhere on Saturday and Sunday but we weren’t able to find out anything about his whereabouts until we received some news on Monday that his body had been found under a bridge. We had actually kept our hopes alive till the Sunday evening”.

On Saturday, 27 years after the abduction of Vedat Aydın and subsequent murder (his body was found horribly tortured), the responsible of this crime have not been taken to justice.

Speaking at the commemoration, IHD Yalçın recalled how “Şükran Aydın, was called at the police station twenty years after the killing and asked whether some suspects were actually those who took her husband into custody. How would she know, after twenty years?”, asked Yalçın.

In fact, said Yalçın, the responsible of these crimes are “known and certain, despite the state says the contract”.

Yalçın also reminded that one year after the abduction and murder of Aydın, intellectual and journalist Musa Anter lived the same fate.

Yalçın also recalled that in the1990’s mass graves were dig in many parts of the region.

IHD Yalçın ended his speech by demanding an end to the impunity in the judiciary and investigations should be carried out properly in order to ensure justice and truth.