The Human Rights Association (IHD) in Turkey responded to Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, saying that he targeted the association in order to cover up his own responsibility and jeopardized the safety of life and property of the IHD directors and employees.

Süleyman Soylu blamed the IHD at a Plenary Session for the killing of 13 soldiers during the invasion attack in Gare.

IHD released a statement titled "Necessary Response to the Statements of Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu Targeting IHD."

“The successful work carried out by the IHD and other human rights organizations for detained public officials unfortunately, did not yield results for the first time and 13 people who were not a party to the conflict lost their lives. However, it is not the IHD or any other rights organization that is responsible for this failure. One of the main duties of human rights organizations is to question whether states respect the requirements of the human rights law in their military operations”, IHD said.

The IHD statement stressed that, “It is inappropriate for the ministers who carried out the operation to blame everyone except himself before an investigation process is over. Therefore, the Attorney General's Office must deal with the incident and conduct an impartial investigation.”

Commenting on the method applied during the military operation, IHD said; “The method adopted in rescuing 15 Turkish sailors who were kidnapped by pirates from the ship named Mozart on January 23, 2021, about 180 miles off the city of Lagos in Nigeria, could have very well been employed in this case.”

IHD pointed out that the Minister of Interior was trying to cover up his responsibility and stated the following:

"Undoubtedly, the only duty of the Minister of Internal Affairs is not to ensure that law enforcement operations are carried out in accordance with human rights law. The Minister of Internal Affairs is also obliged to ensure the safety of life and property of the IHD and its members like everyone living in this country. However, Minister Soylu, while speaking at Plenary Session, targeted our association deliberately and maliciously in order to cover up his responsibility and thus endangered the safety of life and property of the directors and employees of the association. It is unacceptable for the minister to target human rights defenders in order to cast a veil over his mistakes. After his speech, threatening messages were sent to our association via emails and social media. We will report the Minister’s threats to the platforms protecting international human rights defenders immediately.

If the Minister of Interior had accepted our appointment requests, we could have talked to him about all these issues face to face and understand each other better. Now, on this occasion, we invite Minister Soylu to apologize to IHD and to open the channels of dialogue."