At their 1064th vigil against “disappearances” in state custody, the Saturday Mothers sought information about the fate of Mehmet Salim Acar. The Kurdish man was abducted 31 years ago by a suspected death squad of the Turkish counter-guerrilla. Since then, there has been no trace of him.
During the vigil, activist Ikbal Eren read out a report on the case. It was August 20, 1994, when Acar was working in a cotton field in his village of Ambar in Bismil district od Amed (tr: Diyarbakır) with one of his sons (13) and another farmer when several armed men drove up in a white car and took him away. They violently dragged the father of six onto the back seat of the Renault Toros car—at the time a typical vehicle used by the military secret service JITEM and considered a symbol of the anti-Kurdish state terror of the 1990s.
Other witnesses, including Acar’s daughter, saw him bound and gagged in the vehicle. According to family members, the Toros and another vehicle involved in the abduction later drove to the local military police base in Bismil. However, despite numerous inquiries to local and national authorities and various complaints, the case remained unsolved for decades. A criminal complaint against two military personnel suspected of responsibility – one of whom was the then battalion commander, Izzet Cural – was dropped in 1997 due to alleged lack of evidence.
ECHR condemns Turkey
The Acar family then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In April 2004, the Strasbourg court found that Turkey had violated Article 2 (right to life), Article 5 (right to liberty and security) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court stated that the government had neither conducted an effective investigation nor adequately informed the relatives.
Although the Turkish government offered compensation, the family insisted on an official conviction and rejected the offer. “The ECHR’s ruling is binding on Turkey,” said Ikbal Eren. “The state must fulfill its legal obligation and effectively investigate the case.”
“We will not give up the fight for truth”
At the end of the rally, a letter from Ihsan Acar, a son of the disappeared man, was read aloud. In it, he describes how he witnessed his father’s abduction as an 11-year-old boy and has been living with uncertainty ever since. “I have never stopped hoping for news or for his return. We have become a large family—one that will continue to fight until our missing loved ones are found and those responsible are brought to justice.”