We Owe Narin the Truth
How did events turn against the Güran family?
In fact, it was not only a child named Narin that was lost there, but also a village called Tavşantepe… I wanted to share this, thinking that perhaps you too might wish to reconsider your thoughts from this perspective. Even if there is only a one-in-a-million share of truth, because we owe this truth to Narin…
In a previous article about Narin, I had written, “We searched for Narin as if searching for one last way out.” Apparently, even then, in our search for Narin, I sensed that excess, that something extra which did not quite correspond to simply looking for a missing little girl, or rather, expressed much more than looking for a missing child. Yet the interpretation of that intuition had remained incomplete. I now understand that searching for a way out was in fact not searching for Narin. For a tiny missing girl could not have led us to an exit. Indeed, in that futile search, each of us became tangled in our own impasse. I fear that in the way the trial concluded—surely not in a manner that will allow Narin to rest in peace where she lies—we all share some responsibility.
Today, at last, I returned to the article I wrote days ago—immediately after the second hearing—about Narin’s killing and the sentencing hearing. The reasoned judgment was announced only a very short time ago. I did not want to put the final full stop to the article before seeing this decision.
Writing this article was difficult. I began it exhausted from an extremely conflicted state of mind: on one hand being unable to stop thinking about this matter, on the other hand fearing that the thoughts swirling in my mind would fade. Moreover, as time passed, I was anxious that I might no longer be able to speak of my thoughts in a coherent way. Because I believe I owe this article to Narin. In fact, an entire country still owes Narin a debt. We owe her the truth, and the truth has not emerged.
Beyond that, there is another possibility so painful that one can hardly even bring oneself to articulate it. Independent of whether one truly believes in the hereafter and the torment of the soul, I wish to say this: there is a possibility that, in this case, the judicial process ended with a terrible error that will leave Narin’s soul eternally tormented. For her mother, who perhaps loved, protected, and watched over Narin more than her own life in this world, may have been subjected to horrific slanders and insults, summoned to clear her honor before even being able to mourn her child, and ultimately sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment without ever learning exactly what happened to her precious daughter or even seeing her grave. Unfortunately, I consider this to be a rather high probability.
The publication of the reasoned judgment has not eliminated this possibility. Beyond that, the incredible logical contradictions in the strongest piece of evidence leading to the aggravated life sentences of three family members—namely the retrospectively narrowed base station analysis and the HTS signal records—have further reinforced this conviction of mine. To shed light on the murder, the only things we have are the HTS records belonging to individuals moving in the same area and time shredded into seconds and fractions of seconds. Even by focusing solely on this slice of time, it becomes apparent that the testimony of the time of the camera or HTS signal records says nothing about why Narin was killed. It casts a very heavy shadow over the allegations against the family linked to the murder. I can even say it renders many of these allegations impossible. I will later address these contradictions in the evaluation of the evidence in the reasoned judgment.
The thought that the mother is a victim in this case has been circling in my mind from the very beginning. It has gnawed at me. Furthermore, I now think that, like Mother Yüksel Güran, her son Enes, and even Uncle Salim Güran—who appears quite unpleasant to most people, as he does to me—may also be innocent. Even if they may be bad people toward those over whom they have power, I do not think they are worse than many others. In my view, the Güran family is not a very powerful family. I also think Tavşantepe is only as mysterious as any other village and, at the same time, as exposed and visible as any other village. Neither the Güran family nor the villagers of Tavşantepe are, in my opinion, the horrifying partners in some unimaginably immense, inconceivable secret. Much is not as it seems, and much is exactly as it seems… That is how it appears to me. I hope I can explain my point in this article.
Like everyone else, I too initially held very strong convictions about the Narin murder, and all of them were against the family. It was indeed not easy for me to detach from those convictions and arrive at this point. These thoughts began to gradually haunt my mind from around noon on the second day of the hearing—after I had listened to countless allegations and defenses. By the evening of the second day, my thoughts had almost crystallized. The days that followed, the defenses I read, and the examinations I conducted on how the issue was covered in the media have not, from that day to today, produced anything that would undermine this clarity. I had previously made my earlier thoughts public through writing or interviews. For this reason, I now feel obliged to write and share what I think today as well. As I said, we owe Narin the truth. Moreover, there is a village and two families whose lives have been ruined and who are under suspicion from seven to seventy.
I followed this painful incident closely as a member of parliament for Diyarbakır, as someone who has reflected on missing children and the dark sides of the notion of family and on media interest in such events, and as an academic who has written on these issues. In the days when Narin disappeared, I also went to Tavşantepe village with three friends from our Diyarbakır provincial organization. In the village, I met with Narin’s mother, father, one of her uncles, and one of her siblings, and I was in their home environment. Later I wrote two articles on this matter. One of them was published in Birikim[1]. I also have another, as yet unpublished, article that I wrote for a forthcoming book on Diyarbakır in another context, in which I devote extensive space to the Narin case. Particularly in this second text, the sense of horror triggered by the story of an eight-year-old child murdered in her home in the presence of her family is very pronounced. I also gave several interviews about the incident. Some of the ideas I advanced in these writings and interviews have radically changed today.
So who or what tells me that what I am about to share is the truth? You may ask this question, and I have kept asking it of myself as well.
Courage of Truth
Perhaps I can answer this question with inspiration or support from Michel Foucault’s work Speaking the Truth[2]. Foucault answers the question “How can the person who claims to be a parrhesiastes (one who shows courage of truth) be sure that what they believe is in fact the truth?” as follows: “I think the parrhesiastes says what is true because he knows that it is true, and he knows that it is true because it is really true.” According to Foucault, the person who advances a truth here believes what they are saying. Therefore, the one who speaks the truth, who has shown the courage of truth, speaks the “truth” because they believe what they say is so (p. 13).
The explanation, of course, appears complicated. Because does not everyone who speaks about a certain fact (in this case, about the Narin incident) already say what they believe to be true? In every situation where we think what we say is correct, do we thereby speak the truth and show the courage of truth? Foucault’s answer is that a person can be said to have shown the courage to speak the truth only when speaking the truth entails risk or danger and when they do so in opposition to some power. That is all I will say about this in this context. I wrote this article because I believe my thoughts regarding the Narin incident are the truth. In this sense, I think I am taking a significant risk. I know from the uneasiness I feel inside that I am setting myself against the power created in the public sphere as much as against political power, namely the power established by the common discourse. Indeed, Foucault also says that this risk need not be extremely great or a matter of life and death; it may simply be the risk of saying something that the audience will not like (p. 13).
In the Narin trial, although the persons (three family members) whom the vast majority of society considers guilty were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, a satisfactory response to the demand for truth was not produced. The fact that the defendant Nevzat Bahtiyar received a sentence much lighter than expected and one that would allow his release after about a year does not explain this dissatisfaction either. For when, on the first day of the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor requested aggravated life imprisonment for all four detained defendants, the impact of this opinion was almost as if the Narin case had ended in impunity. Because what was wanted was not that each of those who appeared guilty be punished with the most severe penalties, but that the truth should be revealed. The answer to the questions of who killed Narin, why, and how did not emerge from this judgment of aggravated life imprisonment. The characterization of the defendants as “joint perpetrators” was not sufficient. Truth was wanted. I now see that, after the reasoned judgment, this demand is being raised even more strongly.
Yet, unfortunately, the extremely intense public and media interest had almost completely destroyed the chance for the truth about Narin to come to light. The incident had been made so complex by the prejudices and assumptions of those standing at the opposing poles of social polarization, and the truth so thoroughly covered over, that its chance of emerging had become nearly nonexistent.
We found ourselves in a situation reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Purloined Letter, which has been the subject of psychoanalytic analyses and discussions by thinkers such as Lacan and Derrida. To summarize the story briefly: an important letter that has been stolen and is being searched for in every corner is in fact out in the open—it has, as it were, been hidden by not being hidden. While every nook and the most unlikely places are searched in order to find it, the letter remains in plain sight. Those who are curious can read a good commentary on the story at the link[3]. In the monstrously exaggerated murder of Narin to which we ascribed excessive mystery, the envelope (the truth) lying in the open, just like Poe’s missing letter, has become unfindable and invisible. It has even become impossible to consider that it might be right there, in full view of everyone. I do not think anyone can deny this.
The hearings in the Narin case were held in Diyarbakır and lasted exactly three days, from 26 to 28 December. Every morning I was there at the start time of the hearing and spent most of my time in the courtroom at the Diyarbakır Courthouse among defendants, lawyers, relatives of defendants, and politicians. In fact, I had not planned to stay that long. But the course of the trial, what was said, and many other things bound me there. On the first day of the sentencing hearing, dozens of MPs from different parties also came to Diyarbakır. In previous stages, the Ministers of Justice, Interior, and Family and Social Services had also come to Diyarbakır and visited Narin’s grave. Following the Narin Güran[4] murder, a Parliamentary Research Commission, briefly referred to as the “Narin Commission” under the roof of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, had been established under the title “Commission of Inquiry for Determining the Measures to be Taken to Protect Children from All Forms of Violence, Neglect and Abuse and to Promote Their Mental, Spiritual and Physical Health.” Many members of this commission were in Diyarbakır on the day of the hearing as well. Essentially, I was there as a Member of Parliament for Diyarbakır and observed the trial representing the DEM Party, but I was, like many others, personally very concerned with the incident. Therefore, I wish to state clearly that the views I set forth here and the responsibility for these views belong solely and entirely to me, as a social scientist and a citizen. As an academic who has been writing for years, I have not informed the party about my previous writings on Narin or about this article, just as with my other writings during my term as a Member of Parliament. This time, I did want to share my thoughts with some authorized figures, but that would have meant sharing the responsibility as well. As I said, to err is human; if I am mistaken and the veil over the truth is lifted and this article is refuted, that error will belong wholly to me.
Until the evening of the first day of the sentencing hearing, I too, like many others, thought first and foremost that the Narin murder had occurred at home, though I was excessively fixated on a particular point. There were many reasons for this. First of all, after the Diyarbakır city center, which spreads over a flat, slopeless area like a tray, when you turn towards Çarıklı and then climb in winding fashion up to Tavşantepe village, seeing those narrow streets and houses lined up side by side, you think that it is impossible for a stranger to enter and leave without being seen. Beyond that, even if one had never taken seriously the remarks that began to spread in the very first minutes of the incident such as “Kurds… Things like that happen over there,” it must be admitted that one becomes mentally susceptible to other rumors. Hüda-Par, Hizbullah, AKP, rumors about the Güran family’s dark dealings, Qur’an course rumors… For our memory sadly does not provide very favorable associations with any of these. So when I visited Tavşantepe for the first time, by the end of the day, the first murder theory that made sense to me was that Narin had “seen something she was not supposed to see.” When it became clear that her last image had been recorded by school cameras, I became convinced that whatever she had witnessed took place at home. Because while returning from the Qur’an course with her friends, Narin at one point leaves them and turns onto the path leading to her house.
Many things nurtured these convictions, of course. For instance, during our visit to the village, a woman suddenly jumped in front of us very close to Narin’s house and said, “The child came home, she came, she threw her bag on the stairs!” Yet up to that date, no one had advanced any such evidence, true or false, that the child had returned home. Indeed, it later became clear that at the time of her death, it was far more likely that Narin’s bag was already around her neck. Nevzat said the bag was closed and hanging around the child’s neck, and the bag was indeed found in the sack where Narin’s lifeless body was discovered. I would have preferred not to dwell as much as possible on such forensic details, but this incident is important as it shows how the village rumor mill was operating at every moment. As is understood from this, contrary to the allegations, the villagers were not wrapped in some great secrecy either. They did not appear to be collectively suppressing and covering up the incident with the family; in fact, the situation is not like that. It is more likely that the people of Tavşantepe, despite knowing nothing, talked among themselves as if they knew something. Most probably, like each of us, the villagers of Tavşantepe, even if they did not speak to the cameras, both amplified the flood of words circulating and later put these words back into circulation as proof of the family members’ guilt. Just like the entire country…
How did events come to this point? How did they turn so much against the Güran family?
The broken Turkish, and even broken Kurdish, spoken by a mother who, under the gaze of the media and curious eyes, was cornered like a rabbit caught in headlights, swiftly turned against her, leading from the very first days to horrible accusations against her. A few accusatory social media posts in the early days accelerated this process. The fact that Yüksel Güran had said to the gendarmerie, before Narin’s lifeless body was found, “How can we protect my son Enes?” was considered proof that she knew her daughter was dead and that the killer was Enes. Accordingly, the monster mother’s priority was to protect her son. It was said that the little girl, Narin, did not matter to the mother at all. Yet from the very first minutes, Enes’s name was being linked to so many rumors, allegations, and accusations that what could be more natural than that Mother Yüksel expressed both her anguish over her daughter’s disappearance and her concern over the rumors about her son? Every word she uttered in her inadequate Turkish was seen as a kind of confession/evidence, and every gesture, movement, and glance was subjected to a test of sincerity under the cameras. Some commented on the way her eyebrows were set, others on the absence of tears in her eyes. Yet Yüksel Güran was a mother who, with the disappearance of her only daughter, was forced to experience her anxiety and sorrow under excessive attention and dozens of cameras. She had suddenly become someone known to all of Turkey, and this was not her choice. Imagine being forced, at a moment when you are deeply distressed and devastated, to prove your sorrow and grief under the scrutiny of cameras, either directly or through insinuations. Is that not terrifying?
What is in fact most clearly understood from the defenses and statements that I did not content myself with only listening to at the hearing but also later specially requested and read is this: nearly all of the mother’s, Enes’s, the father’s, and even the uncle’s attitudes and statements that suddenly turned against them are related to their including in their statements many of the rumors that had entered circulation, their being thrown into confusion, and their making some changes in their statements based on what they had learned while the circle around them was being tightened by unimaginable hatred. None of these changes in statement is as serious or grave, for instance, as the changes in the statements of Nevzat Bahtiyar.
As Father Arif Güran said, banging on the table and sobbing in the courtroom, their daily routines, second by second, minute by minute, were broken down into units and scrutinized, while their lives and souls were destroyed. In a terrifying state of anxiety and grief, they were at the same time bewildered under unimaginable accusations. They simply could not fully remember certain things; other things they revised in light of new information they had heard. Let us give two examples: in response to the allegation that the father and the uncle had given contradictory and incorrect information about the time when Narin disappeared, both regarding themselves and Enes, they said roughly this (I paraphrase): first we said after 15:00, because she left school with her friends around that time, but then one person from the village said he had seen Narin after 17:30, and another said he had seen her at a later time. As a family, we run after every piece of news we hear, we investigate; there is no one else running around except us. Later we say she was last seen at this hour. In short, while trying to follow up what they heard in the village as they searched for the child, they revise the time of Narin’s disappearance, first saying it was after this time, then, “No, it was after that time.” These revised statements immediately come back at them as serious accusations.
Likewise, the allegation that Uncle Salim Güran manipulated those who said they had seen Narin in the village at different times in the evening cannot be substantiated. Although the media, the opposing side, or institutional lawyers state in their declarations that Salim Güran manipulated these people, the individuals who later claimed to have seen Narin say—again, paraphrasing—that while they were talking among themselves about having been mistaken about the time they saw her, he heard them and said “tell it like this,” using vague expressions in trying to implicate Salim Güran in the incorrect statement of time. Essentially, even the most serious allegations about changes in the family members’ statements concern matters that cannot concretely obscure an incident, revolving around “first he said this, then he said that.” Moreover, as one focuses more closely on these details, it becomes clear that every new piece of information claimed to have been obtained from them contradicts previous accusations against the family members and weakens these accusations. Yet, unfortunately, no one takes this into account.
There is a great deal of information about the family that is mutually contradictory and that, though used as proof of their guilt, actually undermines itself and repeats relentlessly. For instance, if Narin had “seen something she should not have seen” and was murdered in the home by family members for that reason, how is the PSA (sign of sexual abuse) found in her underwear and clothes explained in that case? Did Enes or Uncle Salim, in this scenario, both kill and at the same time abuse Narin in the brief time window (8 minutes) and in panic after she reached home because she had witnessed something? Or did Nevzat, after having taken Narin’s lifeless body from Salim under threat and in fear in order to bury it, abuse her at the riverside before burying her? In that case, are we to believe that a man who had been intimidated, co-opted into the killing of a child under duress, who had been cowed by the Güran family for years, somehow regained sufficient composure to commit this abuse and then went to his sister-in-law’s home in the village to have tea as if nothing had happened, and returned home with cheese as he had planned with his wife that morning? And if he had been made to participate in the incident in such a way, how are we to explain his joining the search for Narin with the family for days, lamenting and sighing? Did they say to him, “Never leave our side”? If so, why did they say so? When, in fact, the more likely instruction would be “Do not hang around too visibly for a while”…
The Ordinary Course of Life
Because the phrase “the ordinary course of life” appears so often in the accusations and allegations against the family, I shall also have to refer to this “ordinary course” from time to time. In that case, could the scenario that better conforms to the ordinary course of life be the following? Can we not, even if only hypothetically, for a moment look at this from that perspective as well? Nevzat encounters Narin, who turns onto the footpath to go home after leaving her friends at 15:11. This is a very strong probability. Because according to the base station reports, within one or two minutes, Nevzat is on the footpath between Salim’s and Arif’s houses. As far as I understand, it is not only the disputed base station report but also Nevzat’s own statement that supports this. Because he says he called Salim at those minutes. He says that, because his water was cut off, he wanted to call and tell the mukhtar, Salim. This 42-second phone call is also present in the HTS call records. He says he then went out, opened the water in his mother’s garden, and used the hose attached there to water his own garden. In order to open the water in his mother’s garden, he had to go to or see the very area where Narin would have been passing at that moment. The family’s lawyers explain this in a way that leaves no room for doubt.
The family’s lawyers, by asking many questions that remain unanswered, in fact presented us with another perspective as well. Some of these correspond roughly to the following questions (again, I paraphrase), which in turn suggest further questions: could it be that, as he had always seen Narin use the same route, when he saw her again that day, Nevzat, whether or not he had premeditated it, in a moment of impulsive behavior or through feelings of envy and hostility toward the family, suddenly dragged the child into his own barn/backyard or persuaded her to go with him by saying he would show her something? Furthermore, upon the child’s resistance or screams, could this assault have very quickly resulted in murder? Do the things he says he did after burying Narin’s lifeless body in the riverbed (going to the village, having tea, buying cheese) not bring him closer to this type of character than to that of a frightened and co-opted man forced to participate in a crime? Does his staying constantly by the grieving family’s side in the days that followed not correspond more to this scenario? Because he did not disappear and remained supportive to the family, is it not understandable that the family never suspected him, while, for 19 days, he would have had ample time to calmly eliminate all evidence in his barn or house? These are all just questions—questions that must be thought about and posed, and indeed were posed in court.
As for the course of events and the ordinary flow of life, the one thing that most clearly does not fit that flow is the time between the moment the child was last seen and the moment Nevzat’s vehicle is seen on the Eğertutmaz stream road. This time frame does not allow for an unpremeditated family murder. And the claim that the murder might have been premeditated never attains any reasonable explanation. If Narin had previously seen something, she would not have been allowed to go happily to the Qur’an course that day. Because if whatever she had seen or known is serious enough to lead to such a horrendous murder, the possibility that she might tell someone could never be dismissed out of hand.
Yes, we almost cannot be convinced in any way by a family murder compressed into a maximum of half an hour. Because this half hour is not spent entirely at home. The child must first climb the footpath for at least 3–4 minutes to reach her home after leaving her friends. For Nevzat, in whatever manner, to go to the house upon being called by Salim, to take Narin’s lifeless body, and then to appear with his car on the Eğertutmaz stream road 2 kilometers away requires that he have spent at least another 7–8 minutes. Especially if we accept his claim that he first took Narin’s lifeless body from Salim wrapped in a blanket at the father’s house, then went to his own home, threw her through the window into the barn, then entered the barn and placed the body into the sack in which it was later found, it is almost impossible for this to have taken less than 7–8 minutes. As we can see if we examine the reasoned judgment, there are only and only 8 minutes between the moment Narin arrives home and the moment her body is seen by Nevzat in a room in Arif’s house. I will address this in later pages. According to the ordinary course of life, a family murder committed through joint perpetration does not appear to fit within this period.
8 minutes
Eight minutes for Narin to be killed collectively in her own home or barn in panic and confusion following her witnessing something, and for her body to be handed over to Nevzat by Salim in a room. In this scenario, everything else can somehow be explained in accordance with the ordinary course of life, but this cannot. The mother, Salim, and Enes have no reasonable reason whatsoever to kill Narin immediately upon arriving home; no such reason has been found. A premeditated murder is not in question. If the incident happened because Enes did something and was caught by Narin, it is impossible that the mother could have witnessed this horrific event—whether it took place before her eyes or in their own barn (as is alleged)—and not been affected at all and immediately embarked on a cover-up effort. When you say this, it is said, “It is possible, because the family is professional!” One must ask, “Professional in what?” Professional in killing their own child and, within 8 minutes, letting a stranger disappear the body like a kitten and accepting that she would not even have a grave? I do not think such professionalism exists… Yes, people can murder their own children in horrific ways, and they do. But we cannot treat this fact as a guarantee that any family can easily do this.
I believe it was in the days when Narin was missing that journalist Ayşe Hür wrote in a social media message, roughly, “It is clear that Narin was loved, spoiled, dressed up, a happy child.” She was saying this after looking at many photos. And indeed she appears so. A child whose hair has been nicely combed and braided, dressed in nice clothes, smiling happily… Indeed, it was very possible to feel this in every line of Father Arif Güran’s long speech. Mother Yüksel Güran said, “We were a happy family.” It was also very painful. They were being forced to prove that they had dearly loved their murdered child. Together, we were forcing them to do this…
It was, I think, the first day of the hearing. After we had taken our seats in the courtroom, the mother was brought in. As she passed right in front of us, she paused for a moment and said to me, “Pray for a mother.” Those words, her look at that moment, her body shrunk and diminished since the first time I saw her in the village, and that pale face of hers, have never left my mind. I am, above all, a feminist academic. I cannot accept that a woman should be sacrificed together with her child in this way. Had Mother Yüksel been sacrificed for remaining silent in order to protect her surviving child Enes, I could not have accepted that either. Because the price of silence is not aggravated life imprisonment. But the ordinary course of the family’s life at the times when Narin was allegedly killed does not suggest that the mother sacrificed herself to protect Enes. It does not suggest that the mother knew anything. As is apparent, she is not able to protect Enes in any way; moreover, she leaves her two small children, one of them six years old, without a parent by ending up in prison, which is beyond comprehension… From this point on, even if one of these three prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment were to confess to the murder, it would be very hard to believe… Unfortunately, we have, collectively, almost condemned the truth surrounding the Narin incident to remain forever unrevealed in a credible way. That is why I write at such length. It is as if this writing is a kind of atonement for what I have written and said before…
To reiterate, it is not possible that Mother Yüksel witnessed Narin being killed, failed to prevent it or was late, and yet, without losing a second, immediately embarked on an effort to cover up the incident. When a person themself or someone next to them breaks a jar, they cannot instantly gather themselves and begin cleaning. Yes, there are only and only 8 minutes for the killing of Narin, the mother witnessing this, calling the uncle, the uncle coming to the house, and, through a rapid shared plan, calling Nevzat to be able to happen. These things do not happen in 8 minutes. Let us assume that Salim was already at his brother Arif Güran’s house at those minutes. Even then, it does not seem possible. If we speak of a concrete piece of evidence in this incident, it is this. That is, if we are indeed speaking of the ordinary course of life.
There are so many things that are impossible. One of the most serious allegations about the incident arises within the framework of “incest/homosexual relations between uncle and nephew or male cousins,” I suppose. Yet it is not possible that Enes could have been caught by Narin in the barn with his uncle or cousin—or cousins—in a situation that they would not want anyone to see. For it is not rational to take this risk in a barn right beside the house while others are in the home. There is no prior story or evidence of such behavior in relation to the uncle. Nor is there any with respect to Enes. Nor regarding the cousin or cousins. Moreover, even if someone had been caught in such a situation, it is still impossible that they would instantly organize themselves so effectively and fit a plan to kill the child and eliminate the body—including by involving Nevzat (!!)—into 8 minutes. Impossible…
Finally, let us consider another possibility: that Enes himself attempted to abuse his sister and, upon her resistance, panicked and killed her. The scratches or abrasions on Enes’s body were explained in this way. Let us ask again: given that she could not protect even her son (Enes), why would a mother participate in such a horrendous crime by leaving her two small children motherless and accepting such heavy slander in order to protect him? She probably knows that she cannot truly protect a child of such character in this way either. Let us say we understand the mother, but why would the uncle, if Enes did this, shoulder this crime? I am very sorry, but when one considers the whole matter carefully, neither incest, nor arms trafficking, nor homosexual relations, nor abuse would, in our time, be a secret that would destroy two families at once. There is no reason for it to be. Narin was a razor-sharp child; it would have been enough to pull her aside and say, “Look, if someone hears about this, if your father hears about it, this and that will happen to us.” Frightening or persuading her would have been enough. Let us say they could not, let us say they killed her; with so many accusations piled upon them, they would have done something to save either the mother, or Enes, or the uncle. At first, we were all certain that the family was being protected. Now that three members of the family have been sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, should we not at least question our conviction that this is a powerful and protected family?
In short, this family does not appear to have been protected. They were not protected. The family could not protect themselves either. We have seen in the judgment that, in the eyes of the AKP, the family is ultimately nothing more than a Kurdish family living in the rural area of Tavşantepe. The fact that three of its members—despite many allegations having been refuted and many media lies exposed—are left alone with these sentences shows this. It is apparent that no evidence was interpreted in their favor and that, under the pressure of public opinion and the media, eyes were closed to the truth. Furthermore, as I pointed out in my first article, the fact that the gendarmerie, which is inexperienced in this type of incident, virtually stormed the scene with heavy equipment, thereby either ruining the evidence or leaving it to disappear over the ensuing days, is a reality acknowledged by the lawyers of both sides. The incident was investigated for days under the initiative of the gendarmerie. Even after Nevzat was forced to confess his crime, neither his relatives were immediately taken into custody, nor were his house or barn promptly and effectively searched. These are what the family’s lawyers say. The other side’s lawyer, as well as the Ministry of Family or the Diyarbakır Bar Association, which are parties to the case, offer no alternative explanation on this point. They do not say, “They were searched.” Moreover, in Nevzat’s interrogation, when the family’s lawyer makes a statement regarding Nevzat’s wife, the presiding judge immediately moves to block it, saying, “She is not a suspect, she is not a suspect,” and quickly closes the subject. You can see this clearly in the defense text. Yet in fact, given that everyone who had contact with the family, like the rest of the family itself, was in some sense a “suspect,” should it not have been permissible to refer to situations in which the wife could also be considered “suspect”? I do not know; this is a question that falls within the domain of law.
Sinkholes that Swallow the Truth
Many accusations and allegations against the Güran family have clearly proven baseless. The claims that the carpets were washed, that all family members deleted their WhatsApp records (only Uncle Salim deletes his phone records because of sexual content on his phone; that is what he says). There is an allegation that some family members deleted messages. But there is no such systematic thing as “the whole family, the whole village, deleted records.” Moreover, let us think: if each of us faced the possibility of being taken into custody at any moment, who could say that they would not review their phone? Because in such a situation, your phone is taken from you and does not return for months, and in many cases never returns. Since the accusations against the family kicked in from the moment the child disappeared, there must also have been those who, for many reasons, deleted their messages. None of the allegations that they held secret meetings while listening to loud music, that they raised the flow of the Eğertutmaz stream to erase murder traces on Narin’s body, that Salim’s vehicle was seen on the Eğertutmaz stream road around 22:00 at night, is confirmed. Especially regarding the vehicle of Salim, although it appears to be confirmed, this allegation finds room in the reasoned judgment only in the form of an expression of having reached an opinion. The owner, make, and license plate of the vehicle in question have never been determined. Yet, even so, in its statement, the Diyarbakır Bar Association both shares the information that it has not been identified and asserts that, even though it has not been identified, it has been concluded that it belonged to Salim Güran. Yet from the sound recordings on his own phone, it appears that, at those minutes, Salim was not in the vehicle or on that road, but in the village and among people. This is what his lawyer states, and no one objects to this explanation. Nevertheless, the allegations are repeated. In the post-truth era, justice, unfortunately, functions like this, skipping right over the facts… Likewise, although no DNA has been found in the bloodstains discovered in the barn and on the hill, or although the time they were formed has not been determined, it is said that “since it has been clearly established that this is human blood, it belongs to Narin.” Ignoring the fact that the authorities conducting the examination may also have been affected by this heavy disinformation, many pieces of evidence are said to be “compatible” with the information that the murder was committed within the family.
Even on a normal and calm day, many of us struggle to remember what we ate yesterday, whom we met. Yet every little detail that Enes forgot about the details of his daily life under these circumstances was enough to make him a killer. Abrasions on Enes’s body are again found to be “compatible” with a scuffle with Narin. But if there was a scuffle and there are definite or indefinite marks on unrelated parts of the body, should we not be astonished at how much Enes manages to cram into those 8 minutes and how many people he does all this beside? There are truly gigantic gaps—sinkholes that, if you linger just a little, will collapse and swallow the truth.
Just now, as I write these lines, there are two thin cut marks on my own hand, very close to my fingernails. One is slightly infected. I have no idea where or how these abrasions occurred. Was it at the hairdresser’s, or when I did a serious cleaning of my cupboard drawers in recent days? Not only this: no matter how I probe my memory, I cannot remember whether we encountered the woman who approached us and said, “Narin came home, she came, she threw her bag on the stairs!” at the village two days after our visit when we were arriving or when we were leaving. I was not under pressure, and I was not tired when I went there that day. But this is what happened. Because in daily life it is difficult for us to remember many things once two days have passed. While this fact is so clear, relatives of the family were declared joint killers due to small differences in their statements on points that may not, in fact, correspond to any significant piece of information. Yet was it not necessary to consider the relationship between the radically different statements that Nevzat gave about what is the only piece of information whose forgetting cannot be explained by mere oblivion and that would be his only guarantee of getting out of this incident unscathed, and the possibility that he might be the one who actually killed the child? At least three times, Nevzat gave radically different statements about where and how he took Narin’s lifeless body from the uncle. This is extremely strange, and yet this distortion by Nevzat was interpreted only in the context of “evidence tampering.” Nevzat, the only person known with certainty to have come into contact with the corpse, was not treated as an “ordinary suspect.” For by the 19th day, when Nevzat’s vehicle was identified from camera footage and his home was raided, the scenario we had collectively constructed in the country had become so convoluted, so enmeshed in “pacts of silence” and countless other theories, that all these theories could not simply be discarded.
In other words, by the end, the possibility that “the murderer was the servant”—that is, that it was “merely” a simple abuse and murder—had become unacceptable. So many debates, so many articles, social media posts, and a demonized family and village could not be relinquished. Returning to the point that the villagers said nothing because they knew nothing was not easy. Could it be that all this is for that reason? Yet even a quarrel among the women of the family after the discovery of the body on the 18th day of the incident was enough to convince us that this village was knowingly concealing a lie. Yet up until the 18th day, before the body was found, no one considered the possibility that the women of the village might have been affected by the rumors spreading at wind speed about the relationships between Salim and the mother, Salim and Hediye, Enes and Devran, and Salim and Enes, and perhaps even indulged carelessly in the perverse pleasure of these rumors, just as we all may have done. No one thought that they might be accusing the family with words such as “Go on, keep lying!” under the influence of social media and disinformation, just as we did. No one recalled how often and how quickly the proverbial saying “there is no smoke without fire” is disproved in village life.
Perhaps We Were Not Seeking Justice
Our search for justice in the Narin case has not found a full response. It could not. Because perhaps we were not seeking justice. It is painful to confirm and say this, but perhaps we wanted to take revenge. The revenge of our wasted years under AKP rule. An impossible revenge…
Moreover, this time, it seemed that all of us—Kurds and Turks alike—were on the same side. On Narin’s side. On one hand, this was indeed a very sincere and genuine partisanship. Yet on the other hand, it was not. Because our need to be vindicated and to take vengeance had suddenly taken precedence over our effort to understand what had happened to Narin. It did not work, because it was not possible to take our rage against the AKP out on that tiny village called Tavşantepe. And indeed we did not. As a result of complex interactions, it was once again the AKP that emerged victorious. It found an opportunity, ostensibly for the sake of justice and ostensibly without regard to anyone’s tears, to punish in the harshest way a state-loyalist family and village that everyone was convinced would be most strongly protected by the AKP and that openly relied on the protective wing of the AKP party-state. It found an opportunity to appear just. In fact, as we saw in the judgment, neither the Güran family nor the village of Tavşantepe had any great power or any immense secret in which the family and the village were jointly involved. They were merely a family and a village whom the AKP could sacrifice without batting an eyelid… The political judiciary rendered its verdict in light of this knowledge. Yet it does not make sense to think that a family could be preserved in boundless secrecy and at the same time sacrificed in this way. This is a story that is not internally consistent in any way.
So what happened in the end? The real culprit essentially went unpunished. The AKP, which has been complicit in the killing of children and women throughout its time in power, was, this time, so to speak, exonerated by ostensibly establishing justice without regard to anyone’s tears. Yet it was not the first time that a (Kurdish) child, a (Kurdish) family, a (Kurdish) village was sacrificed in those parts… The words spoken live on air on the very first day of the incident by an AKP MP—words that now make me think he did not really mean all that has since been ascribed to that sentence—“The family are our friends of forty years… There are things we know and cannot say,” likewise contributed, in a sense, to the destruction of a family and indeed a village that was in pursuit of a missing daughter and in a state of horror. All our ready suspicions clustered around that sentence. There, they found a position that confirmed them.
Anyone who tried to carefully watch the second hearing of the Narin Güran case could have seen that, in this case as well, the verdict had long since been given, just as in the Gezi and Kobani cases and in many political trials. Because a criminal case had acquired an entirely political character. Moreover, this did not happen in the sense implied by the phrase “femicides (in this case, child murders) are political.” It gained its political character not primarily through power relations and gender inequality, but through its capacity to articulate with prejudices, hatred, and rage at the opposing poles of a deeply polarized society.
This took place through very complex processes of disinformation and media manipulation. Already, not only in Turkey but around the world, our understanding of the world and events has long since been shaped not by truths and facts but by inverted images and circulating discourses mediated by the media.
The Retrospectively Narrowed Base Station Report and HTS Signal Records
It appears that the most decisive piece of evidence in the aggravated life sentences of the three family members has been the narrowed base station records. But this is where the problem begins. The narrowed base station analysis is not carried out at the time of the incident or on the day in question but days later. Experts and forensic specialists say that it is very problematic to conduct a retrospectively narrowed base station analysis, especially using the technique referred to as “triangulation” in the supplementary report in the Narin case. Indeed, as has been mentioned in the media, the authors of this supplementary report, which played the most significant role in the sentences, themselves state that there may be deviations of 2 meters and 1 minute. Experts say, “If there is a deviation of one minute, a person can walk 100 meters in one minute.” The narrowed base station records indicate that, at the time of the incident, Salim, Enes, Yüksel, and Nevzat were in the same house, which, given that their homes are in fact already very close to each other and assuming that the deviation in the retrospective narrowed base station analysis is a little more than one minute, makes it highly problematic to overturn “the ordinary course of life” and to allege murder through “joint perpetration” in a way that defies all logic. Nonetheless, since this is a highly technical matter, I recommend that you examine the link[5] I have provided. As you will see, in the special interview at this link, Koray Peksayar, described as one of Turkey’s leading forensic IT experts, and forensic IT expert Att. Levent Mazılıgüney evaluate the HTS narrowed base station supplementary report, one of the most important elements in the Narin case.
Peksayar states the following: “From the report, we cannot understand what operations the preparers carried out. In Europe, in the USA, or anywhere in the world, I have never heard of retrospectively narrowed base station data being used as in the Narin case. With retrospectively narrowed base data, anyone can be declared a terrorist, a thief, a dishonorable person.”
Mazılıgüney: “Many criminal lawyers say, ‘Such a thing is impossible,’ but due to the sensitivity of the Narin file, they do not comment.”
Problems in the Reasoned Judgment
The HTS signal records, which are the “strongest” piece of evidence in the reasoned judgment, are deemed sufficient to make Salim Güran, Enes Güran, and Yüksel Güran joint perpetrators and killers, taking into account the “ordinary course of life,” even though it is accepted that they may deviate by two steps or one minute (and in this situation, one minute may correspond to fifty or even one hundred meters). Without taking into account that Salim’s house and the house of his brother Arif—where Enes and Mother Yüksel live—are 50 meters apart, it is stated that it is certain that Salim was not in his own home but in Arif’s house, which is considered the scene of the crime, based on the HTS signal records. Yet while the HTS records are accepted as definitive evidence that Salim was not in his own home but in his brother Arif’s home or extensions 50 meters away, even though Nevzat’s phone gave a signal as if it were near the scene at the time of the murder, it is said that, due to the proximity of the houses and the possibility of signal overlap, this is not interpreted as if Nevzat were there. Yet Nevzat’s house is further away, 100 meters, and located relatively lower. The wording in the reasoned judgment at this point is as follows:
It has been established according to the narrowed base data that during the time when the victim Narin left the path and was walking toward her home and then arrived in front of the barn, the defendant Nevzat was near the scene of the incident, but given that the defendant’s home and the home of the complainant Arif are close, this matter has not been evaluated by our court against the defendant.
In the reasoned judgment, the statements that interpret the three family members as if they jointly participated in the act of killing are also highly problematic. Even though there is no reasonable justification and no sign or indication of such, it is alleged that the act of killing began in the barn or extensions and was completed in the house. Although the defenses mention bloodstains in the barn and on the hill, even these stains are merely described as “possibly belonging to a human.” Even this is not certain. And indeed the evaluation section of the reasoned judgment does not specify them, and there is no evidence whatsoever that they belong to Narin. Perhaps they are very old stains. We do not know. No reasonable information is provided as to why an act of killing would start in the extensions and continue into the house… Thus, every relevant or irrelevant finding is linked together with a kind of certainty as evidence of joint perpetration.
We do not initially understand why the judgment scrupulously avoids stating that Narin was killed in the barn or extensions and that her body was brought into the house immediately after death. But it is only under this assumption that all three can be considered to have participated in the act of killing. If either Enes or Salim had killed her in the barn and somehow been caught by the other family members, “joint perpetration” could not be argued. But the notion that family members jointly mastered the situation and moved beyond mere spectator status to actively participate in an act of killing that begins in the barn and extensions and extends into the home has no understandable motive. Neither what they were doing at the time of the incident nor how they took part is in any way clear. It is difficult to accept this assertion as there is no plausible justification for an act of killing that starts in the extensions and continues into the home, nor does it appear possible for such an act to fit into the “8-minute time period” within which the murder is accepted to have taken place. In short, one is left with questions echoing in one’s head: “Why, why, why?” There is not a single reasonable answer to these questions in the reasoned judgment. The fact that the family has no reason to kill Narin, apart from “mysterious, conspiracy-smelling” theories spreading from social media, and that no motive is ultimately attributed to the family does not absolve them from being joint killers. Yet the answer to why Nevzat is not considered a suspect is as follows:
Although the other defendants and defense counsel claimed that the victim Narin was killed by the defendant Nevzat; given that there was no animosity or reason that would require the defendant Nevzat to kill the victim Narin, and that in the National Forensic report prepared on the improvement of the Daran-2 camera recordings, there was a moving blur toward the direction of the house-barn, and given that our court accepted that this blur was in fact the victim Narin because the clothing elements were dark and she was perceived as short and thin, in this situation, it is concluded that the victim Narin was killed in the house, barn, or extensions…
The most serious flaws in the report converge at two points. First, of course, there is no enmity between the unfortunate child and Nevzat, and let us say none between the family and him either, but what about the alleged enmity between his own family and this child? What is the purpose in so tormentingly killing Narin in the barn or extensions and then in the house in a prolonged process involving Enes, Salim, or Yüksel in a joint manner that paradoxically invalidates every individual allegation about each of them? There is no answer to this.
Second, as becomes clear, if we do not accept that the blur whose existence is acknowledged in the improved camera recordings by the National Forensic report and which is merely interpreted as possibly being a human is Narin, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Narin had passed by Nevzat’s house and reached her own. Moreover, if this camera can see this blur, should it not also have caught, even as a blur, Salim climbing up the hill to call out to Nevzat within at most three or four minutes (since the total time is very short) or at least Nevzat walking on the same road as Narin back home? If such movement on this road exists, why is it not mentioned? If there is no such movement and the camera is seeing that area at those minutes, then neither could Salim have called Nevzat, nor could Nevzat have gone to Arif’s house to take the corpse. From the evaluation text of the reasoned judgment, it is again clear that the evidence submitted by the defense lawyers, and which makes the HTS records doubtful and appears more convincing—regarding the pedometer data and the defendants’ internet activity at the time of the incident—has not been taken into account in any way. It is explicitly stated that it has not been taken into account. As follows:
Other evidence submitted to the file by the parties to the case—complainant, complainant’s counsel, complaining institutions, defendant and defense counsel—has not been considered by our court as contributing to the concrete incident and therefore is not addressed here.
According to the family’s lawyers, during the time of the murder, Salim’s phone shows that he was continuously on the internet and taking very few steps, whereas Nevzat’s internet usage appears so minimal as to give the impression that the internet was only running in the background. Almost nonexistent. Based on this information, one lawyer states that it appears that Salim was indeed in his own home and seen there. Should this not have been taken into account, even a little?
I saw in the three-day hearing and in the defenses I later read carefully that some of the evidence submitted by the family members’ lawyers was highly significant. Unfortunately, this evidence was neither refuted nor taken into consideration.
The Only Statement of Nevzat That Does Not Change
There is another very problematic matter which is frequently mentioned in the reasoned judgment and in the defense of Nevzat Bahtiyar. The reliability of Nevzat’s statements that the murder was committed by Salim is defended with the following sentence:
It has been observed that the defendant Nevzat, in the only statement that did not change during all stages, stated that he did not kill the victim Narin and that it was the defendant Salim who killed her and gave the body to him.
Yes, the defendant Nevzat, from the moment he was caught (he did not confess; he was caught), while changing almost all of his statements in a way that cannot be rationally explained or justified merely by fear, does not change this one point. Yet is it not precisely for this reason that this ought to be considered highly suspicious? Frequently repeating “Salim killed her and gave her to me,” never stumbling or slipping on these words, and never showing any hesitation in this single point, Nevzat, as can be seen from the defense presented in court and from the defense text attached to the judgment (and as explicitly stated in the reasoned judgment), given that (perhaps because his statements on almost every other point, as he spoke, had to be and would be changed) he speaks very little, gives short answers. He keeps saying, “I do not know,” “I do not remember.” In the sentence in which he claims that before handing over Narin’s lifeless body to him, Salim said, “Narin saw my relationship with Yüksel; that is why I killed her,” he neither stumbles nor makes a slip. Yet when he states that he first saw Narin’s body in the room with foam at her mouth, he does not remember what he himself said, what he did, or anything else. He answers all questions by saying, “I do not remember”… While we see in the reasoned judgment that the unchanging nature of the words “Salim killed her and gave her to me” is presented as proof of the reliability and truthfulness of Nevzat’s statements, why do we not see in the same judgment any mention of the changes in Nevzat’s statements? His fear of Salim is presented as the reason for his inconsistent statements at the beginning, but when Nevzat was caught and gave these statements, Salim was already in prison. The judgment does not address these points at all.
Even after being asked dozens of questions related to the missing blanket (a blanket whose existence is not actually known with certainty), which come across as highly leading, he still fails to arrive at a coherent explanation. Why, then, should we believe Nevzat? The man whose only consistent sentence is “Salim killed her”?
Another extremely grave matter in the reasoned judgment concerns the allegation by Nevzat that “Salim told me he killed Narin because she saw our relationship,” which has turned out to be entirely unfounded and is openly acknowledged in the reasoned judgment. Yet rather than saying “Nevzat lied” in this case, the judgment itself, almost incredibly, pulls Nevzat out of this lie. The judgment, in an extraordinary move, asserts that this lie was “imposed on Nevzat by Salim and the family in order to conceal the real motive.” At this point, things truly become unbelievable. While the entire family—mother, father, Enes, and uncle alike—are repeatedly and vehemently protesting this allegation in court and speaking of it as a grave slander that overshadows their suffering, acting as if there was some other motive or reason for the killing that they were trying to hide, why would they utter this lie to “the stranger in the village” right then and there?
As for the expression “stranger in the village,” you can also see it in the initial defense included in the reasoned judgment. The presiding judge has Nevzat (who is alleged to have limited ability to express himself) carefully say, one by one, that he was afraid of Salim and that he was a “stranger” in the village, that he came there later, that the village belonged not to him but to them. I truly ask that you read this defense. Nevertheless, somehow, the “stranger in the village,” that is, Nevzat, first says he has known Salim for 30 years or more and that they have been together since childhood. Immediately afterward, he says, “I am 52 years old; I have lived in that village for 52 years.” These contradictory statements, coming one after the other, are not given even a moment’s attention.
There Is Also the Bag and Slippers Matter…
According to the reasoned judgment, on 21 August 2024, around 15:08, the defendant Nevzat Bahtiyar called Salim Güran and talked for 42 seconds, then left his home. Around 15:10, he is determined to have been on the paved road between the homes of Arif and Salim and near the home of Arif. Around 15:18, he is near the home of Arif. Around 15:26, he arrives in front of Arif’s home. At 15:27, he is in Arif’s house and the extensions, and according to the HTS signal records, he continues to remain in the house until 15:35, then around 15:40, he is near the school area. These are the statements. However, whereas the HTS records are accepted as definitive evidence that he was inside Arif’s house when it is convenient, the HTS signal records that show him to be on the route along which Narin was passing when such an inference would arise are not trusted.
Of this narrative, taken entirely from the reasoned judgment and to which I have explained at length why I do not assign much credibility, two things are important to me for many reasons nonetheless. First, that Nevzat, according to the HTS call records, calls Salim at 15:08, the call lasts 42 seconds, and he says he went outside at about 15:09. This HTS call record is not an HTS signal record; it is a call record and can be definitively verified. That is, just before Narin is last seen on camera at 15:11, Nevzat, by his own account, goes out to the road where Narin will pass. And, indeed, about ten minutes later, around 15:18, he says that Salim called out to him from the hill. I do not think this is true.
Because in the DECRYPTED clip of the National Forensic report, between 15:18:47 and 15:18:50, the intense blurs and bright areas in the house-barn region are interpreted as Narin approaching this area. That is, if Narin appears to have reached there at 15:19 and if Nevzat, with her body, is seen on camera leaving Arif’s house at 15:41:56, the entire incident appears to fit within 22 minutes. Indeed, if this scenario were correct, we would already be accepting the HTS signal records that state that Nevzat entered the house and even the room where Narin’s body was found at 15:27. For the HTS records show him to be there. And the reasoned judgment accepts this information at this point. Moreover, why else would Nevzat be in Arif’s house at that time, a house he says he had only ever gone to once in his life? He goes because he has been called to take Narin’s body and make it disappear. In that case, everything becomes much more grave. For if Narin appeared to be in the barn at 15:19 and Nevzat entered the house at 15:27 to take her body, then, as I mentioned before, everything would have happened in those 8 minutes, and Nevzat would have been inside the house ready to take the body! That is how we arrive at those 8 minutes.
If a murder has been compressed into a mere 8 minutes, then the statements relating to these minutes are critically important. Nevzat says he took the slippers that emerged from the sack together with the body, from in front of the entrance door when he left the house with the body wrapped in a blanket that had been handed to him by Salim in a room, and that Salim had given the slippers to him there. We are speaking of a murder that, as the reasoned judgment says, began in the barn or extensions and was completed in the house. Did the child enter the house on her own feet, take off her slippers in the entrance, and then get dragged into the barn? If the child was never brought into the house and was “begun to be killed” in the barn (this cruel expression is, I am sorry to say, used many times in the reasoned judgment, and I am sorry to repeat it), and the act was then completed in the house, what were the slippers doing in front of the entrance door? The slippers should have been either in the barn or, if they had been taken from the barn and intended to be disposed of together with the child, they should have been with the body.
As for the bag, Nevzat says that it was hanging around the child’s neck. This also appears to be true. If the child had come into the house on her own feet, taken off her slippers in the entrance and gone inside, was she then dragged from the house to the barn with the bag still around her neck? If she was “begun to be killed” in the barn with the bag around her neck, and then brought into the house, was she dragged into the house with the bag still hanging around her neck? If the bag was intended to be disposed of together with her, why was it not at her side, at her feet, or somewhere in the blanket, but still hanging around her neck? The bag and slippers contradict one another and do not in any way fit the scenario of a killing that begins in the extensions and continues into the house.
When you read the allegations, reports, and finally the reasoned judgment carefully, it is hard not to think that the aim is to confirm the powerful public opinion against the family and the “common conviction,” which from the very first minutes of the incident trampled the presumption of innocence and insisted that the family was collectively guilty of this horrendous murder. It is as if it was desired that the three family members should not leave that house which the culture of social media lynching had set ablaze and that they should not emerge from that fire… We can obtain no other certain information. Strangely enough, it is Father Arif Güran’s own words in court that also give me this thought. He explains somewhat this way why he said “Yes, that is Narin” when he was told that Narin had been found and that there was a child in intensive care in another province, and he was shown a photo. “Both because the child somewhat resembled her and because she was not in good condition, it was not clear. But I said ‘It is Narin.’” The father, sobbing at this point, explains why he said this: “Later, I thought to myself, and I realized that I wanted to find my daughter, I wanted that child in the intensive care unit to ‘be her’,” he says. Those who interpret this very understandable psychological state as evidence of the father’s guilt should also think of it this way: once a public, a society, that had risen up for Narin had made up its mind, did we perhaps read every piece of data as if we wanted “the killers of Narin to be the Gürans”? Unfortunately, this is a plausible explanation. And it is very sad.
In short, the village of Tavşantepe easily and effortlessly matched the unimaginable, indescribable, invincible “ghoul” image from Persian mythology that has lodged itself deep in our minds. The gul-i beyabani, the man-eating demon…
We projected, in one night, indeed in a single minute, all the evils that have nested in our minds in connection with “that geography” from the 1990s onwards, perhaps throughout the entire Republican period, onto the village of Tavşantepe. From unsolved murders to white Toros cars, from drugs and incest to organ trafficking and arms smuggling, from the Illluminati conjured up from a village at the foot of Zerzevan Castle to prostitution and feudal tyranny—whatever there was, we projected it onto that small village of 200 households. Neither the CHP members, nor the DEM Party members, nor the AKP members had a genuine motivation to protect them and to care for the truth. In fact, it was not only a child named Narin that was lost there, but also a village called Tavşantepe… That is how I see it. I wanted to share this, thinking that perhaps you too might wish to reconsider your thoughts from this perspective. Even if there is only a one-in-a-million share of truth, because we owe this truth to Narin…
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