Justice Vigil by family of missing university student Gülistan Doku reaches day 13

On 5 January 2020, Gülistan Doku, a student at Munzur University in Dersim, went missing. Her family launched a Justice Vigil on 1 January in front of Dersim Courthouse. The family wants to know what happened to their daughter. Gulistan’s mother Bedriye and father Halit Doku came to the courthouse and said: “We want our daughter back, find our daughter.”

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Dersim Provincial co-chairs Ibrahim Kasun and Nurşat Yeşil and members of the Dersim Women’s Platform paid a solidarity visit to the family.

Where is Gülistan Doku

22-year-old Gülistan Doku disappeared on 5 January 2021. Immediately after her disappearance, it was feared that she might have been the victim of a violent crime. Only one day earlier, her ex-boyfriend Zainal Abakarov had forcibly tried to drag the young woman into his car. Doku resisted and passers-by who had witnessed the incident informed the police.

However, the police ruled out the man, whose stepfather – now suspended – was a police officer in Dersim, as a suspect relatively early on. The authorities have no other leads, however, even though almost every neighborhood in Dersim is under surveillance 24 hours a day with surveillance cameras and directional microphones. Instead, the police suspect that the student committed suicide.

Abakarov has gone into hiding and allegedly cannot be found.