Who is Zabit Kişi?
Zabit Kişi was a Turkish teacher who became an unwilling protagonist in one of the most harrowing stories of enforced disappearance and torture in contemporary Turkish history. Like many others dismissed from public service in the aftermath of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, Kişi found himself caught in the sweeping purges and criminalization of individuals alleged to be affiliated with the Gülen movement. When schools were shut down and legal avenues of employment closed, he sought safety abroad and moved to Kyrgyzstan. He could not, of course, have foreseen that his quest for safety would be interrupted by the long arm of Turkish intelligence.
His Abduction and Enforced Disappearance
Kişi’s nightmare began on September 30, 2017, when he was detained at Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan during what was supposed to be a routine return trip to Kyrgyzstan.
In a brazen violation of international law, Kişi was hooded, forcibly placed on a private jet, and flown to Ankara as part of a covert operation conducted by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT). Upon arrival, Kişi was not processed through any official police or judicial channel. Instead, he was taken to an unofficial detention facility — a black site. There, he was confined in a three-square-meter, windowless shipping container for 108 days, completely cut off from the outside world. No communication with his family, no access to lawyers, no contact with judicial authorities. He, for all legal purposes, was disappeared.
The Torture He Was Subjected To
In that black site, Kişi endured unspeakable torture. In letters he later managed to send from ordinary prison, he wrote: “I was stripped naked, they blindfolded me, they kicked my ribs until I felt them break.” He continued: “They gave me electric shocks in my genitals. They tried to rape me with a stick. I passed out numerous times. My feet were stepped on systematically, my head was bashed against the wall.”
He described his tiny cell as a “grave,” adding: “There was no light, no air. I didn’t know if it was day or night. They gave me food twice a day through a narrow opening. I lost 30 kilos. At some point, I was praying to die.”
This cruelty was not random; it was methodical. The perpetrators wore balaclavas and used code names. His torturers repeatedly demanded confessions and names of others. It was clear that MİT was not seeking truth but constructing a narrative. His cries went unheard for over three months.
His Fight for Justice
On January 18, 2018, Kişi suddenly appeared in a court room. Emaciated, disoriented, and visibly traumatised, he testified before a judge. He told the court he had been abducted, tortured, and denied all rights for 108 days. He submitted complaints, requested investigations, and provided detailed written testimonies, including timelines, descriptions of locations, and names (or aliases) of perpetrators.
Yet the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office refused to act. It did not carry out any investigation. It did not order the gathering of forensic evidence. No suspects were ever questioned. Despite a legal obligation under Article 17 of the Constitution to investigate credible allegations of torture, the prosecutors wilfully turned a blind eye.
The Decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court
In March 2025, more than five years after his application, the Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC) issued its ruling. The Court unanimously found a procedural violation of Article 17, citing the state’s failure to investigate Kişi’s allegations of torture and enforced disappearance.
The Court ordered 190,000 TL in non-pecuniary damages and ordered a fresh investigation. However, it rejected several other complaints — including unlawful detention and substantive torture claims — citing certain procedural defects, such as late filing and lack of exhaustion of domestic remedies.
Criticism of the TCC Decision
While the decision acknowledged a procedural failure, it deliberately sidestepped the issue of substantive torture. Despite overwhelming evidence, including consistent testimony and supporting medical documents, the Court chose not to recognize the actual fact of torture, only the failure to investigate it. This distinction is not only legally questionable but morally bankrupt.
By focusing exclusively on procedural violations, the Court insulated the state from deeper accountability. Its refusal to name torture outright shields perpetrators and prevents full reparations. In a case where the victim was kept in a black site for 108 days and subjected to acts that meet the international definition of torture, such judicial evasiveness is unconscionable.
Systemic Implications: Human Rights Watch Perspective
Human Rights Watch’s June 2024 submission to the UN Committee Against Torture affirms that the Turkish Constitutional Court has adopted a pattern of narrow rulings, acknowledging procedural violations while rarely demanding substantive accountability.
In Zabit Kişi’s case, the TCC took over five years to deliver a judgment, despite the seriousness of the claims and the risk of further rights violations. During this delay, the Court failed to issue any interim measures — no order to preserve CCTV footage, to obtain medical documentation, or to interview witnesses. This inaction enabled the destruction of vital evidence.
The HRW submission highlights that such judicial complacency emboldens impunity. It allows the Turkish state and its intelligence agencies to continue cross-border abductions, incommunicado detention, and torture with minimal legal consequence.
A Broader Pattern of Transnational Repression and Judicial Complicity
Zabit Kişi’s case is not an exception but rather a part of a wider pattern. According to several reports, Turkey has executed an extensive program of transnational repression since 2016, targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement across multiple continents. This has included over 100 renditions from countries such as Kosovo, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Kyrgyzstan, often with the complicity or acquiescence of host governments.
This strategy, driven by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT), involves sophisticated methods: surveillance of expatriates, use of blacklists, pressure on diaspora communities, and clandestine abductions. Once in Turkish custody, detainees often report identical patterns of torture and forced confessions. The state’s use of legal systems to retroactively justify these operations compounds the abuse.
What makes this repression particularly chilling is the involvement of the judiciary in its execution . Turkish courts often validate the outcomes of illegal renditions, deny habeas corpus protections, and dismiss torture claims. The Turkish Constitutional Court, though nominally independent, has repeatedly failed to challenge this machinery. By postponing judgments, refusing interim measures, and framing abuses as procedural lapses, it acts as a pressure valve rather than a check on executive power.
This broader pattern demonstrates that Zabit Kişi’s ordeal is not simply the consequence of rogue actors or an isolated failure of oversight. It is a symptom of an authoritarian apparatus that uses law as a tool of repression.
Conclusion
Zabit Kişi is not merely a victim; his case is a reflection of the corrosion of the rule of law in modern-day Turkey. His story is emblematic of how far state institutions can go in the name of national security, and how courts, by failing to speak plainly and act swiftly, become complicit in injustice.
The Turkish Constitutional Court had a chance to confront this reality and assert the primacy of human dignity. Instead, it hedged. In doing so, it allowed time, politics, and legal formalism to eclipse truth. The burden now shifts to international bodies and civil society to continue the fight for justice that the Court refused to carry to its end.
If torture can be erased by bureaucracy, and black sites denied by silence, then justice itself becomes a ghost. Zabit Kişi deserves better. So does Turkey.
Categories: Torture and Impunity, Turkey Human Rights Blog