ŞIRNAK - An apalling truth surfaced that in Beytüşşebap where violations of rights and detentions are intense, there is no law office. Families whose members are taken under custody, are forced to search for attorneys in Hakkari, the neighboring city and pay large amounts of money for that.
It turned out that there are no lawyers in Beytüşşebap, a city surrounded with police stations, a city under intense surveillence with mobile electronic system integration and check points at every corner. In the districts known with intense conflicts and rights violations where 20 thousand people live, the issue causes many citizens to be victimized.
Hundreds of people have been detained in the district center and in the connected villages, especially in recent years when conflicts have intensified. Many of the citizens, some of whom were released, were charged with "being a member of an organization", "making propaganda for an organization" and "committing a crime on behalf of an organization". In the course of the ongoing operations in recent months, the biggest problem experienced by those detained during this process was the lack of legal council.
The relatives of the people under custody, usually contact the lawyers in Uludere for the deposition of their relatives. A few lawyers working in Uludere, usually can't make it to Beytüşşebap due to their workload. The second choice of the families looking for attorneys are Silopi and Cizre, which are both tens of kilometers away.
People's Democratic Party (HDP) District Co-chair Şaban Cin, Yasin Akdağ whose father was arrested recently and some attorneys from Beytüşşebap evaluated the situation for Mesopotamian Agency (MA).
Reminding that Beytüşşebap was among the cities where detention operations took place the most after 2015, HDP's Cin said that citizens were beaten and insulted during detentions. Cin said many people were detained on simple grounds and some were arrested due to lack of defense.
Cin, stating that the reason lawyers do not work in Beytüşşebap is that the district is too far away from the settlements, said that many citizens renounce from their rights to an attorney because they can't pay for it. Cin stating that the lawyers usually requested from the bar, said that the high prices of attorneys victimizes the citizens.
Ali Akdağ's family, who was arrested after being detained with 7 people a while ago, is also one of the families who had difficuly accesing a lawyer. Akdağ stated that his father was arrested due to attending some funerals and making funeral prayers for the deceased. Akdağ who stated that they contacted some attorneys in Şırnak's Cizre and Nusaybin and the neighboring city Hakkari due to the lack of legal council in the district, said that none of them accepted to come for their deposition due to the 4 hour distance.
Akdağ who stated that the last time an attorney came to the district as a guest of a neighbor, he had to go in to help with the legal council, said that legal council should not be an issue in a city like Beytüşşebap where intense violations of rights takes place and made a call to the law institutions to do their best about it.
Attorneys who are from Beytüşşebap but have offices in different cities, stated that they did not work in Beytüşşebap because there is no job opportunities and that the districts is too far away from the cities social facilities.