12 year old Uğur Kaymaz and his father Ahmet Kaymaz was shot in front of his house int the Qoser (Kızıltepe) district of Mêrdîn (Mardin) on Novamber 21, 2004. It has been 20 years since the murder of Uğur Kaymaz. In the autopsy, 13 bullets were removed from the body of 12-year-old Kaymaz and 8 from his father. A kalashnikov gun larger than Uğur Kaymaz's body was left next to Kaymaz in an attempt to make the incident look like a "conflict". After the photo in question was released, The Mardin Governorship of the time claimed that "two terrorists preparing for an attack were killed" and tried to cover up the incident. 

 

TRIAL PROCESS

 

In the incident, attempts were made to protect the perpetrators from the beginning. As a result of the struggle of the lawyers and the family, a case was opened against police officers Mehmet Karaca, Yaşafettin Açıkgöz (Serdar Gökbayrak), Seydi Ahmet Döngel and Salih Ayaz on charges of "exceeding the limits of legitimate defense and killing a person in a way that the perpetrator cannot be identified." The case opened at the Mardin High Criminal Court was later transferred to Eskişehir on the grounds of "security" and the trial against the 4 police officers resulted in an acquittal on the grounds of "acting in legitimate defense."

 

The 1st Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation approved the decision "unanimously", and after domestic remedies were exhausted, the lawyers of  Human Rights Association (İHD) Mardin Branch took the case to the European Court of Human Rights. In the case where an acquittal decision was given in Turkey, The Court, in its decision announced in February 2014, convicted Turkey on the grounds that Ahmet Kaymaz and Uğur Kaymaz's "right to life violated". However, despite the Court's decision, no retrial was held. The Constitutional Court also rejected the request for a retrial, arguing that the Court decision was a "discretionary decision".

 

ATTACK ON THE KAYMAZ FAMILY, REWARDS TO THE PERPETRATORS

 

Despite 5 years have passed since the file went before the supervisory authority regarding the non-implementation of the Court decisions in 2019, no developments have occured. During this period, one of the defendants in the file, Yaşafettin Açıkgöz, a police officer who changed his name to Serdar Gökbayrak, was killed during the coup attempt on July 25, 2016. Regardless of whether Uğur Kaymaz was the perpetrator, the perpetrator's name was given to an overpass in Kocaeli. While the perpetrators were left unpunished, In 2016, the trustee appointed to the Qoser Municipality began by demolishing the statue erected in memory of Uğur Kaymaz and the murdered children. Then, on November 21, 2016, the anniversary of the massacre, Makbule Kaymaz, a mother working at the municipality, was dismissed from her job by a Statutory Decree. The name of the park built by the Derik Municipality in memory of Uğur Kaymaz was also changed by the trustee. When the municipality, which was transferred to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) after the March 31 elections, wanted to rename the park after Uğur Kaymaz, the Derik District Governor claimed that Uğur was “affiliated with an illegal organization.” In addition, on the 19th anniversary of the murder of Uğur and his father, their graves were attacked twice in a row by unidentified individuals.

 

'WE ARE HANKERING FOR JUSTICE'

 

Noting that as the Kurdish people and Kurdish children, they are hankering for justice for years but could not find it, Uğur Kaymaz's brother Alişer Kaymaz said: “If my brother were alive today, he would be 32 years old and would be with me. However, unfortunately; they took him and my father from us 20 years ago. We have been fighting for 20 years, saying that justice would come. However, it got worse every passing day. As we said justice, they attacked and protected the perpetrators. But we did not give up. Maybe we could not get results from the courts, but we convicted the perpetrators, those who gave them this order and those who protected them in the conscience of the people. We stand behind our cause today. We will continue to stand behind our cause until the last day.”

 

REASON OF THE KURDISH ISSUE HAS NOT BEEN SOLVED

 

Erdal Kuzu, the lawyer of the case who evaluated the 20 years that have passed, pointed out that what the Kurdish issue is and why it has not been solved can be read through the murder of Uğur Kaymaz and his father. Noting that the Kurds have been living in a system where their identities have been denied since the establishment of the state, “Unfortunately, this system has been continued until today. Uğur Kaymaz is one of the biggest victims of this system and also one of the biggest indicators of why the problem has not been solved. Despite the fact that 20 years have passed since his murder, the state has not even apologized to the family and has not wanted to accept the fact that Uğur was a civilian child. In this context, the trial was conducted only to acquit the people who killed him, to sanctify their actions and to sanctify the state behind him," Erdal Kuzu said. 

 

‘THE DENIAL POLICY LEFT THE PERPETRATORS UNPUNISHED’

 

Noting that what happened was a continuation of the “impunity policy” that has been systematically implemented in Turkey since the foundation of the republic, Kuzu said that the “sanctity of the state” lies behind this. Kuzu continued as follows: “The perpetrators are still living in society with impunity. Perhaps, some of them are still continuing their duties. Therefore, the killing of Uğur Kaymaz and his father Ahmet Kaymaz can easily understand what the Kurdish problem is, why the Kurdish issue has not been solved, and why the state has developed a policy of impunity. It is accepted by the entire society that Uğur was killed as a result of an extrajudicial execution. The state’s approach towards denial has led to the perpetrators of Uğur being left impunity.”

 

MA / Ahmet Kanbal