38 years have passed since the coup d'état of September 12, 1980, which remained a black spot in the history of Turkiye. Mahmut Yalçınkaya, one of the coup victims, expressed his feelings over the coup despite 38 years had passed his hair still stand on end when he remembers tortures he was exposed.

Although 38 years had passed since September 12, 1980, it remains as a dark spot on the forehead of "established order". More than 1,600 million blacklisted at the time when 230,000 people were tried and 517 people were sentenced to death, it was people who victimized the most.

Mahmut Yalçınkaya, a victim of the period residing in the Uluköy village [Gundê Izer] neighborhood of Mardin's Kızıltepe district, narrated tortures and cruelty to ILKHA's correspondent they have exposed in that brutal time.

When he was taken into custody during the September 12 coup d'état, Yalçınkaya said that he was about 20 years old and that he kept in prison for 9 years and experienced various kinds of torture.

"We were subjected to brutal torture and insults for 69 days in the ranch"

Adding that the inhuman treatment he had experienced has not been accounted, Yalçınkaya said, "I was left as a victim during my lifetime. I was at my best times; I was 19-20 years old when Kenan Evren carried out the military coup. Operations carried out by military staff on our village and nearby villages. First I was summoned to gendarmerie station, They took me first to Kızıltepe, then transferred to Mardin Brigade Command. Thousands of young like me and I, including elderly, women and men were exposed known and unknown methods of tortures in a ranch that I was kept for 69 days. My hair still stand on end when I remember those torments. When will the account of this crime carried out against humanity be asked?"

"Torturers hurt the human dignity by truncheon"

Yalçınkaya explained the tortures they had seen both during the detention process and during the period, they were in prison:

"They were taking us to the Palestinian hanging tortured us until we fainted. They would undress us, pour icy water on us in the freezing winter. They would electrify with the tire tied to our private area, to our fingertips and ears. I remember that I couldn’t see sunshine for 2 months long. They would hurt human dignity with the truncheon. They would make us eat frogs."

"My children could not recognize me when I got out of prison"

Yalçınkaya said that he entered prison at the age of 20 and kept in prison for 9 years.

"My family married me at the age of 17. I had two boys when I was arrested. My eldest son was 11, and my younger son, 8, when I got out of jail. They did not recognize me, they didn’t know the feeling of having a father. After a long effort, we adopted each other."

"Of course, there were various diseases in the prison. It cough tuberculosis disease when I was in jail. I got stomach bleeding 3 times. The first 3 years of the prison period continued with torture."

Yalçınkaya emphasized that the military coup did not provide any benefits to the country nor to the people, but sow enmity seeds. "The coup caused the socio-economic collapse of the country. The country was disgraced in the world. The reason that the country has still not developed in socio-economic and justice, I think it is a product of 12 September fascist coup."

Yalcinkaya said that he had not forgotten the tortures he had lived 40 years ago and said, "I am now 60 years old and I speak on September 12. Those I experienced when I was 20 years old, I still feel. We were sacrificed as well as the country's dignity, honor, justice, and economy were demolished. After that, we do not want our children and our grandkids to experience such coup."

Yalçınkaya stated that, after freed from the prison, his village had been burned in the 90s and that they had to migrate to the west to live in exile after the torture they saw in prison

ILKHA