Onur Yaser Can picked up by police for weed; tortured, his deposition altered by police and finally he committed suicide. No one got blamed and his mother, while she was dying of grief, left a note saying “Human dignity will triumph.” And now, with Pamir’s death* we understand how evil we are.

Gökçer Tahincioğlu / Journalist & Writer

That much we need to be together and unite and that much we call out for engage and stick together, it is the proof of how much we divided. By reminding constantly, we forget each other. That’s why all this “true life” is the story of a country that assumes “being one” is “being same”.     

* * *

Onur Yaser Can was born in 1982, in the capital of a country bleeding with military coup. His parents were fall in love in university and he born with the beauty of only a love child can be. Until his four, he lived in Ankara. Then Baghdad, the city of which his faith will end up like... He started his early education at an UN school along with the tens of different kids from different cultures. In 1987, his sister joined the family. Now, he could share his toys with someone. Two years later, the family moved back in Turkey, again.

He won the Anatolian High School entrance exam. In his first college entrance examination he was one the most successful and top students in national degree. METU’s (Middle East Technical University) Department of Architecture was his first choice. As he enrolled the department, learned that he won a scholarship from a university from Belgium in the field of fine arts as well… Then he moved to Ankara again. He did not stay that much as his mind was browsing among the different worlds.

He embraced the architectures in Italy, where he moved as a part of student exchange program. When he graduated from METU he was speaking three languages and had explored three continents. And his parent would know; he could not settle for this less. When they told him to go to USA for his education, as his uncle; he said “If I’ll go, I’ll stay there as him. I’ll be here, I’ll live here”.

İstanbul was his dream city. Went there, got a job. In June 2, narcotic police took him into custody. Allegedly he had bought weed, “even if it was not a crime to use”. Though, dealers were on street and free. There was no lawyer presence in his first deposition; the police did not tell him to call one. And in a country of setting the Constitution at defiance, his family also did not informed or called.

A voice in darkness said “Get naked”. He undressed quietly and tremulously. He had no right to saying whose hand can lie on his body. Yaser, a flower of his parents was now withering under insults. When he made to listen the voices of young people begging to police, he grasp of the “idea and act” he is asking for to do. When he slapped by the police officers thought he did not understand the “mission” he cried inside. His heart bleed when he shouted at as “We’ll see you again”. Those police officers looking for “intimacy” were, of course, in the doctor’s examine room with him; after custody process. It is a custom in Anatolia, you don’t let go of your “guests” so easily, so, although it is against the law he was again in that police room after his doctor’s visit. In that very room, he forced to sign the papers without reading; the papers which he has to read and sign before he visit the doctor for medical check. Only one day later after his release, police called him again. In that very dark room, the things he is being expected to do, whispered to him with an “extreme sensitivity”. They released him but for 20 days of hell, all shadows were around him, close to him. 

I won’t go there, not again

Finally he got a lawyer yet couldn’t get hold of his forced depositions. When his lawyer insisted on to getting the copies of depositions, police called him again, telling “Your signature is missing”. In June 23 of 2010, the evening of the day he supposed to go to police station [again] and give deposition [again]; in third floor of the building he live; he stared at vanity, dead space . He got slowly undressed. And with his eyes, he weighted the sufferings in order to see which one is heavy. He remembered the faces of those, who willing to run over the wounds in his heart. And as thinking of saving himself by gliding through short seconds of darkness; he left this world, as stripped from one goodness and kindness.

Since the health system is working similar to compassion of this country, he brought two different hospitals. And he closed his blue eyes, in the second hospital he brought into. It was just few hours ago, he called Ankara with a deep trouble in his voice, which never distressed before. And he called his parents to İstanbul. When the family arrived to İstanbul 03:00 a.m. in the morning, there was no breath in Yaser’s body.

His friends told “He was not eating for days.” His boss said “He was fearful, anxious.” But it was this unfinished note exactly reveals what he felt and went through: 

“After I got caught, I forced to be stark naked. They told me to lean against the wall. I forced to cough, bend down and kept waiting. During this time they made me to listen the voice of someone, who was crying and begging to the police. The slapped me in the face and body and humiliated. Some of the police officers phoned and called me to the station and forced me to sign a deposition, a different and altered one from my previous deposition. They told me to be a police informer.”

With the hope of “justice can help to heal the suffering” his parents raised their voices. In 11 months, 3 different prosecutors got the case. Some important court experts checked out the entrance and exit logs of police station. As in all democratic countries where torture and torment are “several accuse”; in this country as well there is no chance to torture someone in the entrance and exits of police station. A prosecutor, being in the ascendancy nowadays, decided “nolle prosequi”**.

In fact, the smoking gun was not that well hidden. But you know, sometimes, when it comes to some sort of occupations and some names, there is this principle of “benefit of the doubt”.  Even though it was fully comprehended and acknowledged that Yaser’s deposition was altered, none of the related police officers accused with the crime of torturing or tormenting. And two police officers prosecuted for “forgery of documents” as if the altered and forged document was some ordinary paper. According to defendant police officers “Yaser was stripped naked but they behaved him nicely”. His family made contacts with almost everywhere; they call for help from international organizations. But they did not aware of that mission was accomplished already.  Two police officers got away with reduced sentences and one day of forfeiture of pay.

Blue-eyed boy 
 

Yaser’s father did not stop. He put advertisements on papers, wrote petitions. His mother Hatice Can on the other hand, coexisted with his son, her heart sunk. Scratches in her heart turned into cracks and there was Onur Yaser, in every crack. In March 2, she set table and had breakfast with his husband. Read the newspaper reluctantly. After some minutes her husband went to bathroom and her daughter was busy in the next room. Her eyes became the eyes of her son. She stared at vanity, dead space; she embraced what her son had felt. And she stripped the world from one more goodness, one more kindness. There left a note, released in papers, saying “My boy, my blue-eyed boy… We have faith, human dignity will triump…”

Without being “one”

We are no good or something and know of it, but with the death of 3 years old Pamir we understand how evil we are. We lived in big lie, constantly mumbling tolerance and compassion are in the ascendance and we live in it without putting ourselves in some other’s place, without walking other’s shoes. And it is possible that now there will be some saying “Then, he wouldn’t smoke weed” and they’ll say this without looking any other side. In fact, what difference it makes; there Yaser Onur and his mother Hatice Can, lies together. 

*Pamir Dikdik: A 3,5 years old of boy. In April 6, 2014 he lost from his house in İstanbul and found dead one day later in the swimming pool of next house. His lost has announced via twitter and social media, hundreds of people gathered to find Pamir boy. Since his house is in the location of ongoing construction of third Istanbul Bridge, some of AKP (the ruling political party in Turkey) fans claimed that lost boy is a “maneuver of Gezi people in order to explore the area and sabotage the bridge contraction and this is a part of a coup against the government.

** Nolle prosequi: Latin for "we shall no longer prosecute," which is a declaration made to the judge by a prosecutor in a criminal case (or by a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit) either before or during trial, meaning the case against the defendant is being dropped. The statement is an admission that the charges cannot be proved, that evidence has demonstrated either innocence or a fatal flaw in the prosecution's claim, or the district attorney has become convinced the accused is innocent.

Translated from
http://www.milliyet.com.tr/iki-yuz-ve-adalet/gundem/ydetay/1866146/default.htm