Recommendations A/HRC/33/51/Add.1 Situation during the visit A/HRC/33/51/Add.1 Measures taken/current situation Level of implementation and observations (to be completed by the WGEID) Truth Justice Memory Center - the Human Rights Joint Platform – Human Rights Watch of the individual. (A/HRC/16/48, p. 11) Turkey still has not criminalized the act of enforced or involuntary disappearance in its domestic law. Thus, disappearances have so far been investigated and prosecuted under other criminal offences, especially murder or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, which are subjected to the relevant statute of limitation periods prescribed by law, i.e. 20 years. Although as per the Article 77 of the Penal Code of Turkey in force defines crimes against humanity, enforced disappearance is not included among the acts listed herein. Given the absence of legislation making enforced disappearance an autonomous crime, the evidentiary burden required to establish the facts in criminal proceedings is the high standard of proof ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. The lack of special standards for lowering of the evidentiary burden has decreased the likelihood of holding the perpetrators accountable. Thus, in the trials on the enforced disappearances of the 1990s, the judgments of acquittal were rendered on the grounds that the evidence was not sufficient for conviction of the defendants. However, there are circumstantial or indirect evidence in the case-files, which clearly allow to establish a pattern or practice of enforced disappearances22. Human Rights Association 22 17 For instance, in the trial of retired Colonel Cemal Temizöz and others, who were accused of working as a criminal gang involved in the disappearance of twenty persons in and around the town of Cizre in Şırnak province in 1993-1995, the testimonies of several witnesses exposed that there had been a pattern of disappearances. According to the testimonies, persons were taken away in a white Renault car, in daylight in the middle of the street, and found dead in roadside a few days later. Although the testimonies were also corroborated by the other evidence, the trial resulted in the acquittal of all defendants due to insufficient evidence. A/HRC/45/13/Add.4 Under the Article 77 of Turkish Penal Code, crimes against humanity are listed. Crimes related to enforced and involuntary disappearances are not among those crimes.