The rebellion was brought to the Parliament! The one who took the microphone was overwhelmed with tears.

01.04.2026 12:49

In the Turkish Grand National Assembly's Research Commission on Children in Conflict with the Law, the families of those who lost their lives or were injured in incidents involving perpetrators under the age of 18 were heard. Derya Uman, the mother of high school student Kıvanç Uman, who was beaten to death in 2022, said, "Our family has been destroyed. We want the penalties to be increased in the harshest way, and we want families to be punished as well. Families are not being punished right now, but we demand that they be."

The Turkish Grand National Assembly's Research Commission on Children Involved in Crime convened under the chairmanship of AK Party Istanbul Deputy Müşerref Pervin Tuba Durgut.  

In her opening speech at the commission meeting, Durgut stated, "Today, we have come together to listen to you, the relatives of victims who have experienced very heavy losses and difficult processes, to hear the events directly from you, and to approach this issue with great care from every aspect. Your presence here is extremely valuable. We do not consider the issue of children involved in crime solely as a legal or administrative topic under this commission. We are also aware of the consequences this issue has on the victims, their relatives, children, youth, and the sense of security in society. Therefore, we see it as our responsibility to carefully address every evaluation that will be expressed here, to try to understand the events in all their aspects, and to clearly identify the areas that need attention. Every person we will listen to here today is not just a party to a file for us, but a direct witness to a lived process and a very important interlocutor who speaks to the conscience of this country. Dear families, I want to express this particularly. This commission will not only listen to every matter shared here but will also work to understand the events correctly, identify shortcomings, and contribute to preventing similar incidents from happening again; it will strive to strengthen a more effective and fair approach. No sentence can compensate for your loss, no decision, no report, no regulation can bring your child back; we know this, but the duty of the state and society is to seriously address the demand for justice that has emerged, to evaluate the negligence and shortcomings openly, and to carry the responsibility of preventing the recurrence of similar pains with determination," she said.

"WILL I ENCOUNTER THE KILLER WHO KILLED US IN 5-6 YEARS?"

Then, the letter of Doruk Çağlayan, the brother of 16-year-old Atlas Çağlayan, who lost his life in a fight that broke out due to a sideways glance in Güngören, Istanbul, on January 14, was read. The letter was read by Legislative Expert Sezen Civelek Tokgöz. The letter included the following statements:

"Hello, I am Doruk Çağlayan; unfortunately, I am the twin of Atlas Çağlayan, whose name now brings sadness to everyone. The blood bond, the life bond I had with my twin is no longer alive. Writing this letter is very difficult for me. I do not remember my infancy, but we would listen to every story my family told together. We grew a little, we went to kindergarten together. Everyone knew us as 'Atlas Doruk.' We were in the same class until primary school, middle school, and the first year of high school. We were more than siblings; we never lived a day without talking or seeing each other until that terrible day. In the second year of high school, we separated our schools. Atlas decided he wanted to be a healthcare worker, while I had not yet decided on my profession. When I got out of school, I would come home first, and then Atlas would knock on the door twice, and my mother would set the table for three. We were a very happy family; we used to go to every football match together, sit together for every breakfast and joke around, and go on every vacation together. My mother would buy two of everything. What can I tell you? Atlas was my twin; I never thought we would be separated. Exactly 75 days ago, we were at the tea garden of the mosque, Atlas had waited for my mother to come to us; it was as if he wanted to say goodbye. While we were sitting in the café, he came to us later, we were all busy with our phones as usual. One of our friends got into a dialogue with that killer, saying 'What are you looking at?' and the café owner directed us outside, saying, 'Take your fight outside.' Just as we were about to leave, I called out to Atlas, I felt something was going to happen, do you know, but Atlas did not hear me, he could not even guess what was going to happen. We were thinking so purely that such a terrible thing did not even cross our minds. I really do not want to describe it, but know that I lost my life there. I screamed 'Ambulance, Ambulance' and threw myself on the ground. I wish I could express in words how much my heart ached while Atlas was dying, but there are no words for it. I begged in the hospital. 'Save my brother,' but he had been stabbed in the heart cruelly. Then the doctor said, 'We lost Atlas.' My world collapsed, life stopped, and I died at that moment. We had dreams, but now none of them have any meaning. Atlas is no longer here, and I miss him so much; Atlas is no longer here, and I feel so lonely; Atlas is no longer here, and do you know what I am thinking now? Will I encounter the killer who killed us on the street in 5-6 years?"

"WE EXPERIENCED A PAINFUL PROCESS"

Zeynep Balcı, the mother of Abdurrahman Balcı, who was stabbed to death in the heart during a dispute with people making noise and littering in front of the apartment where he lived in Esenler, took the floor. Reminding the incident, Balcı said, "I want to talk more about my son than about them, and I really want to talk about the painful process we experienced. Although our Prosecutor wanted all of them to be arrested, unfortunately, only 1 out of 6 was caught, and that one turned himself in. The killer himself was released by the judge along with the rest. We went through a very heavy process, we received threats. Let me show you my son Abdurrahman Balcı. Look at this beautiful child, and then look at this. Dear members of parliament; I am noble, you are deputies. You are my representatives, I have given you power of attorney. Let hands be placed on consciences and look at the difference between these 2 people. Which one is a child, which one is clean, smart, patriotic, honorable, living with dignity and honor? One of the threats here says, 'If necessary, we will burn another youth.' Look at the person who is under the umbrella of the concept we call 'SSÇ' (Children Involved in Crime) at the age of 17. Today Abdurrahman is gone, the next day Atlas Çağlayan is gone; another day another child will be gone, and this will not stop every day, and we want to know who is behind this, who is not," she said.

"I WANT OUR CHILDREN WHO WERE KILLED BY OPPRESSION TO BE REMEMBERED AS 'MARTYRS OF OPPRESSION'"

Balcı then made the following requests from the commission;

"We have a request for offenders under the age of 18; the true cost of the crime they committed must be paid. In other words, they must pay the price of the type of crime they committed and whatever crime they committed. What will they do the next day or the following year hiding behind a crime for which they did not pay the price? We believe they will get involved in more crime. They are hiding behind a system that has no deterrence, and we want this non-deterrent system to be fundamentally changed because our children are already underground, I want to ask what will be the right of our children."

"WE NEED TO APPROACH CASES UNDER 18 EMOTIONALLY"

Oğuzhan Çöpür, who was stabbed during a brawl that broke out to save a child beaten by three people under 18 in Bağcılar, spoke. Recounting the incident, Çöpür said, "I am 27 years old and I have never been to the police station even once. My father always taught us, 'You will always be on the side of good.' Let me show you, I am entering among 10 children alone here. The reason for this is; I did not want there to be a single child among the victims of the perpetrators, but I became a victim, and I want to tell you this. People need to approach these cases under 18 emotionally, not legally. For example; you need to approach as a mother and father, not as a member of parliament. When approached this way, we will win in every way. You are trying to win a small community. Of course, this makes sense, but on the other hand, you are losing a very large segment," he evaluated.

"WE SEARCHED FOR MY BROTHER FOR 8 HOURS"

Nurhan Alüzrek, the sister of Gülden Coni, who was killed with 30 stab wounds in a high school yard in Edirne, recounted the blows her brother received during the incident, saying, "The police officers and law enforcement told us the same thing, 'You have raised such a brave girl that despite the blows she received, she somehow held the knife in her hand. Despite her hand being torn apart, she did not drop that knife and defended herself.' She is definitely here, and I am sure she is listening to me. After killing my brother, the murderer took my brother's phone from his bag, a murderer who was in need of even 400 lira. Then, within 3 minutes, he goes home with bloody belongings, at that moment his aunt and brother were at home. He directly destroys the family evidence, his father throws the murder weapon into the river, the bloody clothes are washed. Even though he was home 3 minutes later, if his family had called an ambulance for my brother, if they had intervened, maybe my brother would be with us now. They did not intervene in any way, and my brother's body remained there for a full 8 hours. On that cold concrete in the school yard, we searched all of Edirne street by street alone for 8 hours. Exactly half an hour after he went missing, we applied to law enforcement, we filed a missing person report. Law enforcement asked us questions, they said, 'How long has he been missing?' When we said he has been missing for half an hour, 40 minutes, of course, they did not take us seriously. Of course, we are doing our own research, calling his friends. Then a friend said, 'Sister, there is such a child, I will leave him alone,' he had told me the night before, and that is how we found out, and despite directly expressing this to law enforcement, they only called the murderer on the phone. There was no situation of going home, taking him from home, or directly intervening, and we waited for 8 hours, searched for my brother, and after 8 hours, we received the painful news," she stated.

"HOW CAN YOU CALL THIS A CHILD?"

Then, Gülhan Ünlü, the mother of Atlas Çağlayan, spoke. Ünlü recounted what happened on the day of the incident, saying, "We lost Atlas that night, but this group actually made plans to kill Atlas inside, it is in the statements, it is in the camera recordings. They had already talked among themselves that night to 'start a fight,' the murderer openly expressed this. Now, I cannot call them 'children,' I cannot say to someone who killed my child, whether they are 15 years old, 13 years old, or 12 years old, who took that knife and went out on the street, who made that plan there, 'You are a child too, you should have a future.' I do not want to say that. Wasn't my child a child? My child wanted to be a healthcare worker, maybe he would have treated many of you. Now, we look at Atlas's phone, we look at the murderer's phone; Atlas's phone has always good things, things that should be, things that are appropriate for his age, even more good things than his age requires. We look at the murderer's phone, there are weapons, threats, on TikTok accounts, 'We can do it this way, we can do it that way, this life is ours.' How can you call this a child now? How can we judge this as a child? My baby was only 16 years old, not even 17, he did not see 17 years old, my child was not young. He was not young, he will not be! I go and talk to a gravestone. In 5 years, he will pass by us and say, 'I lay down, I got up.' How can we accept this? How can we live with this? I just wanted to express my feelings a little, but I do not think the murderer has an age, I do not accept this at all. I think a murderer who is 30 years old takes a life, and a murderer who is 15 years old also takes a life; I think there is no difference between them. I cannot label them as children," she said.

"WHY IS THE RIGHT OF THE DEAD CHILD NOT DEFENDED?"

Beyhan Alacacı, the sister of Fatih Alacacı, who was stabbed to death in the Pursaklar district of Ankara, said, "In court, the maximum sentence is 24 years. However, when we saw the reasoned decision, they gave 12 years, and the time served for this sentence is only 8 years, one year of which is supervised release, and two or three years in a closed prison. In the reasoned decision, the judge says, '12 stab wounds were not inflicted with a monstrous feeling.' My brother entered the grave missing one kidney, they took his kidney, it was punctured to his small intestine, they had punctured his ribs, they had punctured his kidneys, the bleeding was so much that all the blood in the hospital went to my brother. My brother was 15 years old; you took away his right to live. Okay, you are protecting the perpetrator, but why are you not protecting the victim? Why is no one bringing this up? Why is no one protecting the dead child? Why is the right of the dead child not defended? Why is there always protection from the perpetrator? Look, if a really good system is established, is there a chance for rehabilitation? It could be, but looking at the current system, I do not think any of them will be rehabilitated.If you can stab someone 12 times at the age of 15, you cannot be rehabilitated; you carry this brutality. And for example, 'dragged child', what have they dragged? You didn't steal bread from the grocery store, you didn't steal water; you went, took the knife, planned it, and stabbed 12 times. There is no dragging here, there is intentional killing here. Therefore, my request right now is of course for this law to change, but I want 24 years for my brother because it is his right," she stated.

"WE WANT FAMILIES TO BE PUNISHED"

Derya Uman, the mother of high school student Kıvanç Uman, who was beaten to death in İzmit, Kocaeli in 2022, said, "Our family has been destroyed. We want the penalties to increase in the heaviest way, and we want families to be punished as well. Families are not being punished right now, but we demand that they be punished. As parents, we did very good parenting, they did not; they left their children outside. If they hadn't, if they hadn't left them; the children were on the street at three, four, five in the morning. I couldn't even send my angel to the grocery store, I wrapped him in cotton that much. He was a very successful child. It was done deliberately and planned, and our court did not do much for us, there was no investigation. I ask you: all our children served 2 years, got out. Right now we are trying to increase it to 12 years, but this is not enough for me. I want the heaviest life sentence. Look, I am a brother of a martyr. When we lost my brother, we said, 'May the homeland be safe,' our heads were held high, and we did not seek justice. May the homeland be safe. If I had 10 sons, I would sacrifice all 10 of my children for my homeland, but let my child not be sacrificed to these rascals," she said.

"WHY IS LIFE SENTENCE NOT GIVEN?"

Çiğdem Yıldız, the mother of Murat Duha Yıldız, who was injured in a fight at a high school in Biga, Çanakkale, and is currently receiving treatment at home, said, "In our childhood, we used to argue, we would talk it out; that is childhood. However, what happened to my son is brutality. The punishment should not only be for the child; the child is a reflection of the family, how you raise your child will return to you. Am I wrong? I say: will the child come out of the grave after 2 years, a 2-year sentence has been given, and will the child come out after 2 years, will the child come out of the grave after 3 years, why is life sentence not given? I am lucky, I see him whenever I want, I sleep next to him, I breathe him in, I smell him," she said.

"I AM STILL LIVING IN A PSYCHOLOGY THAT ÖMER WILL COME BACK"

Nisa Toprak, the sister of Alperen Ömer Toprak, who lost his life as a result of a punch thrown during a fight in a park in Bolu, said, "A neighbor called me and said, 'Ömer made the news.' With that curiosity, when I looked while on the way, I saw my brother's name for the first time as 'A. Ö. T'. I don't know if this abbreviation means anything to you, but these abbreviations are generally used for deceased individuals. It has become a pattern, so when you see it, it directly comes to your mind. My only prayer was that I went to the hospital until the last minute, 'No way, it's fake news' because there are fake news in our country. My mother's position was clear to me; when my mother went to the morgue, I had a rush, I never forget. I saw Ömer in the morgue too. By the way, Ömer died from a punch, don't say, 'Can a person die from such a punch?' Meanwhile, the other side kept saying this and sent the forensic report to higher authorities multiple times. So it's not a simple thing, that punch. When I went to Ömer, there was a way of loving between us; I always kissed Ömer's nose, he had a little nose, I would say 'Ömüşüm'. Normally, I was a person who was afraid of the dead, of the grave, but there I just thought my brother was sleeping, I accepted it that way and I am still in shock about the incident because I still know logically that Ömer is dead, but I am still living in a psychology that he will come back," she evaluated.

"GIVE 50 YEARS TO A PERSON, NOT 3-5 YEARS, WILL THEY BE ABLE TO TAKE THOSE KNIVES AGAIN?"

Şahin Çakır, the father of Hakan Çakır, who lost his life in a fight in Keçiören, Ankara, stated that they called the police and the 112 emergency line on the night of the incident, saying, "We called at least 10 times, both my daughter and neighbors were calling. And when we called 112, we started to get scolded, they responded like, 'Okay, we will send someone.' The one who is currently detained was threatening, saying, 'You will see in five minutes, I will gather people here, I will tear you all apart.' As if everyone was waiting there, first in the front were his father, mother, and 8-10 children from the neighborhood we didn't know, all of them were children aged 14-15-16, and they surrounded us all at once and stabbed us. We had no means of defense. After that, what hurt me the most was that the police took 40 minutes to arrive that night when there was no traffic; there were no security, guards, etc. wandering the streets and parks. While my eldest son was fighting for his life in the hospital, due to their ages, these SSÇs escaped from the police's control at the hospital. After three days, they took me from the hospital with my hands handcuffed. What was it? The other side was suing me. They took me as a suspect. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I received the news of my son's death, and without even seeing him, I went to the police station with my hands handcuffed, I stayed one day in custody, and I stayed in custody that night too. The next day, we went to the prosecutor's office, and of course, they released us. Give a person not 3-5 years, but 50 years regardless of age, look, will they be able to take those knives again?" he stated.

"WHAT COULD MY CHILD DO TO THEM THAT THEY STAB HIM BRUTALLY?"

Nazan Demirci, the mother of Yusuf Demirci, who was killed by his friends during a motorcycle repair dispute, recounted the events of the day, saying, "In 5 seconds, they slaughtered my child from 11 places in his internal organs and 9 from the outside. This is unbearable. When he was taken to the hospital, my child was alive and conscious. However, we were told, 'He has a very small wound. Don't be afraid, don't worry, we will intervene and send him.' Istanbul Çam and Sakura Hospital gave us this information. We are waiting calmly there. My child has been stabbed all over, and they took my child for intervention 5 hours later. 5 hours pass here, and my child is still under observation; a child with holes all over from 20 places. I went inside, blood was gushing from my child onto the walls. I fainted there, I couldn't hold myself. You told me, 'It's a tiny wound,' and my child was begging my sister's daughter there, 'I don't want to die, save me.' I went through very difficult times, my spouse had a brain hemorrhage, our health conditions are not good; my spouse, I, and my daughter are receiving psychiatric treatments, I can barely stand with medications, believe me. What we are experiencing is not easy at all. My 16-year-old child is under the ground, and I want to add this, sharing pictures from prison and saying, 'Instead of my mother crying, let your mother cry.'"As lions do. "What kind of conscience is this? In the end, there has been no remorse. And what could my child have done to them that they stabbed him so brutally?" she said.

"IF A PERSON KILLS AT 10 YEARS OLD OR 100 YEARS OLD, THEY ARE A MURDERER"

Meltem Arıcı, the mother of Eyüp Arıcı, who lost his life after being stabbed in a fight between two groups in Gaziantep, said, "Eyüp was coming home when the other side was insulting my child, cursing. 'If we see you here again, we will do this and that, you know what.' Eyüp turns around and says, 'What are you saying, what have we done?' Before he could finish, they punched Eyüp, then he was shaken, and 7 people jumped on him." Meanwhile, father Ömer Arıcı said, "SSÇ is a curse upon us, a curse. Let me say this, I apologize to all of you, there is no such concept as 'SSÇ.' If a person kills at 10 years old or 100 years old, they are a murderer. What is this SSÇ? I ask you, what is this? The child cannot go to school. At nine in the morning, I take my child to school, at ten the teacher calls me and says, 'Mr. Ömer, your son wants to leave.' I ask, 'Son, why are you leaving?' and the child is crying uncontrollably from psychological pressure. What they eat and drink was not separate. Solve this SSÇ; enough, enough. Why should these people be victims, all of their children are under the ground."