A/HRC/45/13/Add.4 criminal investigation regarding an alleged act of enforced disappearance does not release the State from its obligation to search for, locate and identify disappeared person or his/her remains, including their return to the relatives, with due respect for cultural customs. 15. Concerning identification of new burial sites, establishment of a DNA bank and creation of a register with the exact or approximate number of the disappeared, the Working Group regrets not having received detailed information from the authorities about progress made in this regard. Against this backdrop, the Working Group recommends that the authorities should consider independent initiatives led by civil society, such as studies mapping burial sites across Turkey. 16. The Working Group considers that the right to truth is both a collective and an individual right. Each victim has the right to know the truth about violations that affected him or her, but the truth also has to be told at the level of society as a “vital safeguard against the recurrence of violations. It is therefore essential that archives, including military archives, be opened and made fully accessible to the public. 17. The Working Group further observes that the entrenched culture of impunity for human rights violations perpetrated by state agents continues to be a main obstacle to holding officials accountable in Turkey. While there are various factors that foster a culture of impunity in the criminal justice system, the lack of judicial independence and impartiality are reported to have been most critical ones. In addition, the recent tendency to incriminate actual or perceived supporters of the Hizmet/Gulen movement by the country’s leadership is presumed to have curtailed independent and effective investigations into enforced disappearances. Dismally low prosecution and conviction rates appear to be a further testament to these systemic deficiencies. 18. Particularly disconcerting are allegations of intimidation and harassment of the relatives because of their activism and calls for truth and justice. Reprisals targeting lawyers and human rights defenders who represent families of the disappeared are equally alarming and should be investigated by the authorities as a matter of priority. In this respect, the Working Group emphasizes the obligation of Turkey to ensure that all involved in the investigation, including the complainant, counsel, witnesses and those conducting the investigation, are protected against ill-treatment, intimidation or reprisal. In the same manner, Turkey should ensure that any ill-treatment, intimidation or reprisal or any other form of interference on the occasion of lodging of a complaint or during the investigation procedure is appropriately punished. 19. The authorities should transfer trials to geographically distant courts as a measure of last resort, while considering adverse effects this practice has on access to justice for the relatives of the disappeared. As a positive step in this regard, the Working Group welcomes the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code that allows reimbursements of travel costs and hopes that all victims and their families will benefit from it without distinction as to gender, ethnicity, nationality, language, disability, and religious or political affiliation. 20. While the Working Group welcomes the adoption of Judicial Reform Strategy, it is regrettable that a national reparation programme has not still been rolled out that includes compensation, restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition for all victims of human rights violations, including enforced disappearance, without discrimination. 21. The forty-year experience of the Working Group demonstrates that the effects of enforced disappearances are lived and faced in different ways by women and girls due to gender roles, which are deeply embedded in history, tradition, religion and culture. The Government of Turkey should recognize that women play a fundamental role in securing and advancing the rights of disappeared persons. Because of structural vulnerabilities to which women are exposed, as often they are sole breadwinners of their families, they are entitled to commensurate redress that should include at minimum financial reparations, psychosocial support, and guarantees of non-repetition. 22. It is regrettable that the Government of Turkey has not supported family associations in their efforts to commemorate the disappearance of their family members. In this regard, the Working Group condemns the authorities’ response to the protests of Saturday Mothers 4