Vigil for Gülistan Doku moves to Ankara

The family members of the student Gülistan Doku, who has been missing for two years, are moving their vigil from Dersim to the Ministry of Justice in Ankara. With this step, they want to bring their demand for the formation of a parliamentary commission of enquiry to fully investigate the disappearance of the Kurdish woman and legal consequences for possible responsible persons to a wider public.

5 January marked the second anniversary of the disappearance of Gülistan Doku, then 21 years old. Born in Amed (tr. Diyarbakır), education student of Munzur University, is considered untraceable, although almost every neighbourhood in Dersim is under surveillance with CCTV cameras and directional microphones 24 hours a day. Regardless of the fears of her environment about a possible violent crime, the investigators persist in speculating on the reflexively voiced suicide theory by jumping into the Munzur, despite an independent expert opinion to the contrary.

Although the police investigation into the whereabouts of Gülistan Doku is still formally ongoing, this is not enough for her relatives and several organisations, especially women’s initiatives. They consider the investigations to be insufficient. Immediately after Doku’s disappearance, it was feared that she might have been the victim of a violent crime. Only one day before, her ex-boyfriend, Zainal Abakarov, had tried to force the young woman into his car. Doku resisted and passers-by who observed the incident informed the police. However, the police ruled out the man, whose stepfather is an ex-police officer, as a suspect relatively early on. However, the authorities have no other leads, although almost every area in Dersim is under surveillance 24 hours a day with surveillance cameras and directional microphones. Instead, the investigators speculate on suicide by jumping into the Munzur and persist in this theory despite an independent expert opinion to the contrary.

Abakarov, meanwhile, has gone into hiding and allegedly cannot be found. His stepfather Engin Yücer is under arrest for evading trial on charges of sharing confidential investigation results on online networks, among other things. But the law enforcement authorities cannot or do not want to find him either. In contrast, the struggle of Gülistan Doku’s family to clarify the fate of the student is systematically criminalised by the Turkish authorities. Throughout the past year, vigils and protests for the resumption of the search for Gülistan Doku and the arrest of Abakarov have been violently broken up by the police several times. In addition, the mother and sister of the missing woman were temporarily arrested several times. A case is also pending against the family lawyer Ali Çimen for allegedly violating the secrecy of investigations.