One day after the Peace and Democratic Society Group burned their weapons on July 11, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a statement in which he admitted to the crimes committed in the 1990s, recounting the extrajudicial killings, village burnings, and the massacres of civilians. Highlighting the resolution and peace process initiated with these remarks, Erdoğan emphasized the importance of a parliamentary commission to prevent new atrocities.
However, President Erdoğan did not utter a word about the crimes against humanity committed during his own time in office, nor did he offer any apology for those crimes. In the period he referred to, approximately 15,000 unsolved killings occurred, tens of thousands of villages were burned, and millions of people were forced into displacement. Talip Tepe, who personally witnessed these pressures, stated that for a genuine and sincere peace, the government must go beyond confession and apologize to the families. Having lost six relatives during this process, two of them in unsolved killings, Talip Tepe has been searching for the remains of his nephew, Abdürrahim Tepe, for ten years. After being buried in the Garzan Cemetery, Abdürrahim’s body was exhumed with a digger.
Talip Tepe’s brother Seyfettin Tepe and his nephew Ferhat Tepe were both victims of unsolved murders while working as journalists in Bitlis (Bitlîs). Nineteen-year-old Ferhat Tepe, a reporter for the newspaper Özgür Gündem in Bitlis, was abducted on July 28, 1993. On August 4, his lifeless body was discovered by a fisherman on the shore of Lake Hazar in Elazığ (Xarpêt). Despite all legal applications and appeals made by the family, the murder was never solved. After Ferhat’s killing, his uncle Seyfettin Tepe, who refused to lay down his pen, continued his journalism as the Batman (Êlih) correspondent for the newspaper Yeni Politika. On August 25, 1995, he was taken into custody in Batman and transferred to the Anti-Terror Branch of the Bitlis Police Department. He died on August 29, 1995, at the age of 27. Authorities claimed Seyfettin had committed suicide while in custody. Decades later, the circumstances of his death remain unresolved.
Talip Tepe emphasized that the torture and crimes against humanity committed in those years must not be forgotten. He pointed out that such atrocities are too grave to be addressed merely with a confession. Tepe called for an official apology to the Kurdish people, who have long suffered oppression and torture and stated: “We have lost so much. We do not want anyone else to die. A sincere process must begin with an apology for these crimes.”
We were tortured severely during the 1990s
Talip Tepe explained that before the peace process began, he could not even return to his hometown: “We suffered greatly here in the 1990s. Until the peace process, I was unable to return to my hometown. Just because my surname was ‘Tepe,’ I was constantly subjected to threats or pressured to become an informant. For years, I couldn’t come back. I only returned after the start of the peace process.”
Tepe described the pain he endured and continued: “In the 1990s, I was subjected to serious oppression and torture. My journalist brother Ferhat Tepe and my nephew Seyfettin Tepe were both victims of unsolved murders during that time. Despite everything, we were never able to identify their killers, and those responsible went unpunished. They were killed because they were journalists. Our family fought hard during that period, but no one was ever prosecuted. Along with them, six members of my family lost their lives in this process. Most recently, my nephew Abdürrahim Tepe lost his life in a clash that took place in Bitlis in 1997.”
Talip Tepe stated that Abdürrahim Tepe was buried in the Garzan Cemetery, but after attacks targeting the cemetery, his body was exhumed and taken to Istanbul. Despite providing a DNA sample, the family has still not recovered the body. He expressed that their pain continues and said: “Attacks on cemeteries and unsolved murders are both forms of inhuman cruelty. Every holiday, families would visit a grave and hold on to a bit of hope. But now even that hope has been taken away from them.
This is both torture and a great cruelty. These attacks are neither humane nor moral. During this war period, our family lost six people, two of them in unsolved murders. We could not find the grave of one, nor the perpetrators of the other two.”
Tepe emphasized their support for the peace process and added: “We support this peace process. We want peace so that people can live in safety and dignity. We lost six of our loved ones. From now on, we do not want anyone else to die.”
We want legal and constitutional rights
Talip Tepe emphasized that the suffering endured by the Kurdish people must come to an end: “Until today, the Kurdish people have always struggled. We have never oppressed anyone, but we ourselves have suffered greatly. We want to leave this pain behind us. We want our mother tongue to be free. We want legal and constitutional rights. We want a world where people no longer die, no one is tortured, and everyone can sing and live in their native language.”
The state must apologize to the families
Talip Tepe called on the state and concluded his remarks by underlining the necessity of confronting past atrocities and issuing an official apology: “The state must apologize for the unsolved murders and the attacks on cemeteries. It must apologize to the families. Not only to us, but to all the families, to the entire Kurdish people, there must be an apology so that a path to coexistence can be opened. There is no form of torture or oppression that this people have not endured. Whether it is extrajudicial killings, torture, or attacks on cemeteries… For this process to move forward in a better way, the state must confront these injustices and offer an apology.”