This archive report was first published on 28 November 2019.
Sumeyye Yilmaz's eight-month wait for news of her missing husband Mustafa finally came to an end on October 21, 2019. But the reunion was bittersweet, as she soon realized that her husband had been subjected to torture and abuse during his disappearance.
Mustafa, a 33-year-old physiotherapist, had been missing since February 19, 2019, when he vanished just days after starting a new job. His wife knew that he had no reason to disappear and that his claims of 'hiding' were untrue.
Police told Sumeyye that her husband was in good health, but she could see that he had lost weight and his hands and face were 'ice cold.' She feared that he had been tortured and was anaemic, but he gave no account of his missing months.
Mustafa's reappearance was part of a larger pattern of enforced disappearances in Turkey, with 28 cases recorded since a failed coup in 2016. Ozturk Turkdogan of the Human Rights Association told AFP that a unit within the security services was likely behind the disappearances, which were used to obtain information from suspected political dissidents.
Similar techniques were used by agents against suspected dissidents in the 1990s. The interior ministry and police did not respond to requests for comment on the cases.
Mustafa had already been sentenced to six years in prison over links to the Gulen movement, but he had been released pending an appeal. He was one of six men who disappeared within a few days of each other around the country in February, all with alleged ties to the Gulenists.
Four of the six reappeared in July in police custody, while the last, Gokhan Turkmen, reemerged a few days after Mustafa on November 5. Turkmen's wife described 'extreme weight loss and very pale skin,' according to an account from Amnesty International.
The disappearances have continued, with 38-year-old Yusuf Bilge Tunc vanishing on August 6, 2019. His wife said there had been 'no active investigation' into his disappearance, and the family had applied to international and Turkish organizations, including the European Court of Human Rights, to no avail.
