Turkey's ruling coalition AKP, MHP blocks parliamentary inquiry into murder of 8-year-old girl

Duvar English

The main-opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) motion to parliament demanding an investigation into 8-year-old Narin Güran's murder was rejected by the ruling coalition of Justice and Development Party and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Following the opening of the new legislative period, the General Assembly’s agenda included the investigation into the case of an 8-year-old girl whose dead body was found 19 days after she disappeared in the Bağlar district of Diyarbakır province, hidden in a sack in a stream.

Opposition parties have reacted against the rejection of the proposal to investigate the murder, which sparked a serious public outcry in Turkey after the arrest of the girl’s most immediate family members. 

Speaking on behalf of the CHP, Diyarbakır MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu said,  "As a person from Diyarbakır, I am extremely saddened and even furious. I am disturbed by the fact that such a brutal murder has occurred in our city, by the silence surrounding the investigation, and by the idea that other values have been placed above justice and conscience. It deeply troubles me to see how much our society has decayed."

Tanrıkulu noted  that this murder sheds light on the precariousness of children along with the dysfunctionality of justice and security mechanisms.

Tanrıkulu continued by questioning the state's failure to locate the body of the child for 18 days, saying, "How can a state fail like this? How can the security mechanism function like this? This village is right next to Diyarbakır. There cannot be a murder that involves so much organized evil, and yet you can't gather any intelligence or security information from a village so closely linked with security forces. They allowed this to happen, without pursuing the matter fully."

Speaking on behalf of the Islamist opposition Felicity Party, Istanbul MP Doğan Demir stated that more than 250 murders of children have been committed across Turkey in the last five years. 

“According to 2023 official data, 26,000 children were victims of assault, 134,000 children were victims of injury, 10,000 children were victims of threats, 20,000 children were victims of abduction, neglect and ill-treatment while 30,000 children were victims of other crimes,” he emphasized.

Speaking on behalf of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party, Mardin deputy Beritan Güneş Altın reminded that their own motion regarding the murder had also been rejected. She stated, "Unfortunately, Narin is not the first child to be murdered, and today, within the walls of this parliament, we once again witnessed that the government is making no effort to ensure she will be the last."

A total of 12 people from and close to the family were arrested in connection with Gürans murder and the investigation is still ongoing. Among the suspects are the uncle and her mother as the prime suspects.

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