Tahir Elçi

Tahir Elçi

Tahir Elçi (* 1966 in Cizre ; † November 28, 2015 in Diyarbakır , Turkey ) was a Kurdish lawyer and president of the Diyarbakır Bar Association . He was murdered on November 28, 2015 in Diyarbakır by previously unrecognized perpetrators.

Career

Tahir Elçi was born in 1966 in a village in Cizre County, Şırnak Province . He attended elementary and secondary school as well as high school in Cizre. He completed his law degree at Dicle University in Diyarbakır and completed it in 1991. From 1992 he worked as a freelance lawyer, first in Cizre and then in Diyarbakır. He was active in many proceedings inside and outside the Kurdish settlement area and represented a number of clients before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). At the Academy of European Law (ERA), he took a course in international criminal and procedural law. From 1998 he held seminars on internal training and human rights. From 2012 he was chairman of the Diyarbakır Bar Association. He was one of the founders of the Foundation for Human Rights in Turkey (TİHV) and was active both in the human rights association İnsan Hakları Derneği (İHD) and within Amnesty International (AI). He was married and had two children. In addition to Kurdish and Turkish , he also spoke English .

State persecution

Elçi received death threats after declaring that the PKK should not be viewed as a blanket terrorist organization. In October 2015, he was temporarily arrested in this connection because the Turkish authorities accused him of propaganda for the PKK.

Even at the beginning of his professional activity, Tahir Elçi was arrested at the end of 1993, interrogated about illegal activities without contact with the outside world and charged himself. He complained to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). There he and other lawyers concerned were certified in November 2003 that Turkey violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (prohibition of torture) as well as Article 5 (1) ECHR (lawfulness of arrest) and Article 8 ECHR (right to respect for private life ) and family life).

Another trial was brought against Tahir Elçi as a joint plaintiff for the murder of two people. On the evening of November 21, 2004, Ahmet Kaymaz (31) and his son Ugur Kaymaz (12) were shot dead by police officers as alleged terrorists in front of their house in Kızıltepe (Mardin). The officials were brought to trial and transferred to Eskişehir . Because of a comment made after the hearing on December 19, 2005, Tahir Elçi was charged with influencing the judiciary under Article 288 of the Turkish Penal Code . On March 12, 2008, a court in Eskişehir acquitted him. The accused police officers had already been acquitted on September 18, 2007. The proceedings brought before the ECtHR ended in a conviction for violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to life.

Legal activity

Tahir Elçi has not only led domestic proceedings for victims of human rights violations, but has represented many of them before the ECHR. In some cases, it was Tahir Elçi's research that resulted in lawsuits being opened, even if they did not result in a guilty verdict. One of these proceedings is the trial of Colonel Cemal Temizöz. Between 1993 and 1995, many people were killed ( disappeared ) in Cizre, Şırnak Province . Seven people, including Colonel Cemal Temizöz , were charged with 20 (21) murders. After 47 days of trial, they were acquitted on November 5, 2015 in the Second Chamber for Serious Crimes in Eskişehir. Elçi had called for further investigations into 40–50 murders in the area.

The murder of Tahir Elçi

Elçi was shot dead on November 28, 2015 at the age of 49, shortly after he publicly spoke out in favor of peace in the Kurdish areas: "We say the war, the fighting, the weapons and the missions should stay away from here". The background to the crime, in connection with which two police officers were killed, is still unclear; there are conflicting suspicions from the Kurdish and state authorities, who accuse each other of being the author of the incident. A request to set up a commission of inquiry submitted by the HDP to the Turkish parliament on November 30, 2015 and supported by the CHP was rejected by the AKP and MHP and thus failed to find a majority.

After Elçi's death became known, there were demonstrations in Ankara , Istanbul , and Izmir . The demonstration in Istanbul was violently broken up by the police after the participants u. a. "You can't kill us all" had chanted. It is estimated that around 100,000 people attended his funeral.

A 3-D reconstruction of the process by the Forensic Architecture research institute at Goldsmith University in London on behalf of the Diyarbakır Bar Association came to the following conclusions in February 2019 on the basis of construction plans, video and satellite recordings. Before the murder, there was an armed attack by the PKK youth organization on a side street, in which two police officers were killed. The two perpetrators fled to the street where Elçi was making a press statement. Plain policemen shot at the perpetrators. Elçi was fatally hit. Accordingly, it is likely that Elçi could have been killed by the bullet from the gun by one of the three police officers. The police officers should be questioned as suspects.

Web links

Commons : Tahir Elçi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mahmut Bozarslan: Protests as top Kurdish lawyer gunned down in Turkey. In: news.yahoo.com . November 28, 2015, accessed May 2, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Diyarbakır bar association president killed. In: todayszaman.com. November 28, 2015, archived from the original on November 29, 2015 ; accessed on March 21, 2020 (English). 
3. ↑ See u. a. Deniz Yücel: Prominent Kurdish lawyer shot. In: welt.de . November 28, 2015, accessed July 26, 2020.
4. ↑ ^{a b} See the article We mourn for Tahir Elçi from November 28, 2015, accessed on December 2, 2015 , written on the German pages of the Turkish Democratic Forum (DTF)
5. ^ Pro-Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci shot dead in Turkey . In: BBC , November 28, 2015. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
6. ↑ Turkey: Prominent Kurdish lawyer shot dead , Spiegel Online, November 28, 2015
7. ↑ Assassination attempt in Turkey: Prokurdic lawyer shot while giving a speech. In: tagesschau.de. November 28, 2015, archived from the original on December 6, 2018 ; accessed on December 6, 2018 . 
8. ↑ The DTF prepared a detailed report on this in October 2015 , accessed on December 2, 2015.
9. ^ The judgment of the ECHR was announced on November 13, 2003. It is under CASE OF ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY (Applications nos. 23145/93 and 25091/94), accessed December 2, 2015.
10. ↑ Compare the weekly report 49/2004 at the DTF, accessed on December 2, 2015.
11. ↑ Compare the weekly report 11/2008 at the DTF, accessed on December 2, 2015.
12. ↑ See AFFAIRE MAKBULE KAYMAZ ET AUTRES c. TURQUIE (Requête no 651/10)
13. ↑ A selection of these can be found at Bianet on November 30, 2015 under Tahir Elçi'nin AİHM Mücadelesi , accessed on December 2, 2015.
14. ↑ See also the special report of the DTF from October 2015 Again acquittal in proceedings for "disappeared"? , Accessed December 2, 2015.
15. ^ Elke Dangeleit: Murder case of the human rights attorney Tahir Elci: allegations of state cover-up. Telepolis , December 2, 2015, accessed the same day
16. ↑ Murdered lawyer: demonstration in Istanbul dissolved with water cannons , Spiegel Online , November 28, 2015
17. ↑ At the funeral of Tahir Elçi, a giant in Turkey's human rights movement, the sense of loss is deafening. Retrieved October 23, 2018 . 
18. ↑ bianet.org (English)
19. ↑ Selin Girit: Tahir Elçi'nin öldürülmesi: Diyarbakır Barosu'nun açıkladığı raporda neler var? In: bbc.com. February 8, 2019, accessed January 24, 2020 (Turkish).