228 children murdered in Turkey in the last 14 years

In the last 14 years, 228 children have been murdered in Turkey, according to a report by the Diyarbakir branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD) covering the years 2011-2021. While most of the perpetrators of the murdered children have not been prosecuted, those who have been prosecuted have either been acquitted or given very light sentences. 

On 28 September 2009, 12-year-old Ceylan Önkol was killed in Diyarbakir by a mortar shell fired from a nearby police station while she was grazing. While the perpetrators of Ceylan Önkol’s murder have still not been found 14 years later, at least 228 children have suffered the same fate since then. Abdullah Zeytun, one of the Önkol family’s lawyers, told the Mezopotamya news agency that judicial impunity is only one aspect of the state’s attitude towards the Kurds.

Noting that they had filed two separate applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding Önkol’s murder, Zeytun continued: “The ECHR did not find any violation with the decision it announced in 2017. The ECHR’s decision was based on abstract findings; it was based on the biased and incomplete procedures of the judicial authorities and the reports of the law enforcement authorities. Thus, with this judgment, the ECHR has added to the impunity policy of the judicial authorities in Turkey in Ceylan’s death.”

Referring to the policy of impunity, Zeytun stated that the direct causes of violence against Kurds in parallel with the unresolved Kurdish question are not independent of the judiciary, adding: “The practice of impunity that the judiciary politically insists on cannot be separated from the political aspect of the issue.”