Vigil of Şenyaşar family in Urfa ends on day 846

On the 846th day of their vigil, the Şenyaşar family ended their protest in front of the Urfa Courthouse, announcing that they would move to Ankara if justice was not served at the hearing on Tuesday.

On 14 June 2018, the bodyguards and relatives of AKP Urfa MP Ibrahim Halil Yıldız attacked the Şenyaşar family's shop in Suruç during the election campaign. In the attack, brothers Celal, Adil, Mehmet, Fadıl and Ferit Şenyaşar were severely injured and hospitalized. Relatives and supporters of AKP MP Yıldız killed Celal and Adil Şenyaşar in hospital, and their father Hacı Esvet Şenyaşar, when he went to the hospital to see his sons. He was brutally murdered, being lynched in front of his wife, Emine Şenyaşar.

Fadıl Şenyaşar, a survivor, received an almost 38-year prison sentence for killing the assailant, Mehmet Şah Yıldız, despite the fact that it was relatively quickly proven that the man was killed by his own men. To make matters worse, the trial was split into two parts. The incidents in the shop are being tried in Malatya, the events in the hospitals in Urfa.

More than five years have passed since the massacre. Yet neither Ibrahim Halil Yıldız nor the majority of his companions have had to answer for their deeds in court. The Turkish judiciary's handling of the lynchings is particularly perfidious: While only one of dozens of identified assailants has been sentenced so far, albeit to a symbolic sentence of 18 years, the court considered it mitigating that the act had happened "spontaneously out of an escalating quarrel".

Emine Şenyaşar and her son Ferit have been holding a Justice Vigil in front of the Courthouse of Urfa since 9 March 2021, demanding those responsible to be brought to account.

On the 846th day of the vigil in front of the Courthouse in Urfa, the Şenyaşar family ended their protest for the time being, announcing that they would move to Ankara if there was not "a hint of justice" in the hearing to be held in Malatya on Tuesday, July 18.

"On 18 July, my mother will either go home and spend her time in her own home differently from the past five years. Or she will take her resistance to the heart of this state," said Ferit Şenyaşar, who was elected a deputy from the Greens and Left Future Party (Green Left Party) in the May 14 election.

The politician thanked all the people who have supported the protest in front of the Courthouse over the past years and criticized the Turkish judiciary for not making any effort to serve justice. "This is a disgrace to the judicial system. After more than five years in solitary confinement, we also want my brother Fadıl to be released,” Şenyaşar said.