BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) Silopi branch held a commemoration ceremony for HADEP Silopi chair Serdar Tanis and district executive Ebubekir Deniz who "disappeared" in 2001. The two politicians had been summoned to the District Gendarmerie Command and were never seen alive again.
A great number of people including the BDP council member Ali Damar, BDP Şırnak Provincal chair Baki Katar, BDP Silopi chair Muhsun Kunur, Başverimli (Tılqebin), the city mayor Sinan Uysal, Şırnak Bar (Law Society) lawyers, MEYA-DER, Peace Mothers Initiative and NGOs members and executives joined the commemoration ceremony. During the emotional ceremony people often shouted slogans like "Martyrs will live forever", "Repression cannot intimidate us". Also, one-minute silence was held for those who lost their lives in the struggle for freedom and democracy.
Whereas applications by Tanis and Deniz families as well as those by Kurdish politicians to prosecutors, the Turkish National Assembly Presidency, Prime Ministry and Presidency brought no results, European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided that Turkey violated the Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that the public offices were directly responsible for the disappearances of Tanis and Deniz according to the Article 13 of the same convention. Turkey was condemned to pay 172 thousand Euros of compensation to the families.
Tanis’s father said that he was called into Şırnak Gendarmerie Regimental Command, at the time under the command of the retired Brigadier General Levent Ersöz and that he was threatened because of his son’s activities in HADEP. Also, before his disappearance Serdar Tanis wrote in a letter to HADEP Diyarbakır Branch Chair Ali Ürküt about the repressions and threats both himself and his father had to face.
Also, Silopi District Gendarmerie Commander Major Süleyman Can, who allegedly involved in the case, was suspiciously killed in an armed conflict.
In an interview by Günlük Daily with a soldier who wanted to remain anonymous, it was claimed that Tanis and Deniz were extrajudicially killed near the River Tigris and buried in Dargeçit after being brought to Dargeçit Çelik Military Station.