Parliamentary commission delays report on Roboski

18 December 2012 – ANF – No concrete steps have been taken so far as to identify and put on trial the perpetrators of the Roboski massacre.

No concrete steps have been taken so far as to identify and put on trial the perpetrators of the Roboski massacre which took the life of 34 Kurdish civilians, inluding 17 minors, on 28 December of 2011.

Diyarbakır Bar Association’s application in relation to the investigation led by the Public Prosecutor of Diyarbakır has been swept under the carpet, while the Uludere Sub-Commission affilated to Parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission has yet to present its report on the massacre which was supposed to have been released three days ago.

The Parliamentary Uludere Sub-Commission has failed to hold its two earlier announced meetings on 6 and 13th December. This delay is being evaluated as a consequence of Turkish PM and AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent criticism of AKP members asking for the enlightment of the massacre.

Uludere Sub-Commission President, AKP Ordu deputy İhsan Şener, has not been heard of since he announced the report was nearly ready. AKP member Şener’s inconsistent approach has been likened to the attitude of PM Erdoğan who said at a meeting with his Kurdish deputies that “The name of the village is Uludere, not Roboski. We paid 100 thousand TL [around 50 thousand Euro] to families who were actually supposed to receive 20 thousand TL for the incident. We had been criticized in the past for not intervening in the smuggling activities in the region”.Releasing a written statement in response to the cancellation of Uludere Sub-Commission’s two meetings in December, Commission member CHP (Republican People’s Party) deputy Levent Gök said that they had received no convincing reason or information about the cancellation of both meetings. “The current state of affairs reveals that there is no political will to allow the Commission report to be released. The public opinion is waiting for the report and evaluations with great interest. For this reason, I call for an urgent meeting by Uludere Sub-Commission to make sure that the report on Uludere could be discussed and shared with the public.”

Another member of the Commission, BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) deputy Ertuğrul Kürkçü, remarked that the Commission, despite having an AKP majority, should gather as soon as possible. He underlined that “The judiciary isn’t performing its duty, while the government is failing to push the judiciary and the Chief of Defence is hiding documents”.

Pointing out that the meetings of the Commission are held not routinely but at times when the President calls for one, Kürkçü added that “The meetings are being postponed when we ask for one. The real problem is the fact that the meetings of the Commission come up with no result and are going nowhere while the President, who bares responsibilities, is constantly postponing the meetings and the completion of the report. The Prime Minister is trying to deceive people for groundless reasons, like discussing names rather than the problem. He is implying that no definitive judgment will be made on Roboski. The worst part of the issue is that the report of the Commission will fail to disclose the perpetrators of the massacre”.