IHD (Human Rights Association) Bingöl Branch, MEYADER and BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) Bingöl provincial organization held a press conference at Düzağaç Cemetery in Bingöl to mark the International Week against Enforced Disappearances in Custody from 17 to 31 May.

Speaking to the press here, IHD Bingöl Branch Chairperson Mehmet Can İnce stated that countless Kurds, Alewis and Armenians are  buried in hundreds of mass graves in the territory of Turkey, underlining that “all the genocides and massacres these lands have witnessed so far are still waiting for justice and truth”.

İnce remarked that the state knew about the places of mass burial of PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) militants killed during or after clashes with the Turkish military in 90's. He said that Turkey violated the Geneva Convention and the Minnesota Protocol by denying the opening of the mass graves in its territory. İnce called for the establishment of an independent commission to launch a process aimed at revealing the truth on the mass graves and the people buried in them.

Speaking after, MEYADER's Bingöl Representative  Cengiz Turan said that some 500 people are buried in 32 mass graves in the region of Bingöl, and that this number rose to thousands in the territory of Kurdistan.

Referring to the figures on mass graves revealed thanks to the efforts by IHD and MEYADER, Turan said these mass graves revealed the true face of the dirty war the Turkish state waged against Kurdish guerrillas in 90's.

“According to the information we obtained from the documents of the municipality, gendarmery command and prosecutor of Bingöl, 133 guerrillas were buried in Düzağaç Cemetery between the years of 1991 and 1999 but we think the real number is much higher”, he added.