Lawyer Jiyan Tosun is a rights defender and a relative of an enforced disappearance victim. She was only 10 years old when she joined the Cumartesi İnsanları movement (Saturday Mothers / People). She has been working at the Legal Aid Bureau against Sexual Harassment and Rape in Custody under the Human Rights Association (İHD) for 17 years. In 2008, she was taken into custody during the banned 700th-week meeting of the Saturday People and was sued along with 46 others. She found herself in the middle of a smear campaign following the bomb attack at Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district on November 13th, 2022. She was targeted for allegedly perpetrating the bombing. She and her close ones have received death threats.
Jiyan Tosun was born in 1985, in the Lice district of Diyarbakır. Her family migrated to Istanbul when their village was burned down in the early 1990s. On October 19th, 1995, her father Fehmi Tosun was taken by force in a white Toros brand car from the front of their house in Avcılar and went missing. Jiyan Tosun was only 10 years old at the time.
She crossed paths with the Human Rights Association (İHD) after her father’s disappearance by force. Tosun cannot pinpoint an exact date or time when she started describing herself as a rights defender because as she puts it, she had “grown up within the İHD”. However, the reason she became a lawyer is her father: “A few months before my father was forced to disappear, my uncle had graduated from law faculty and had presented his diploma to my father. I had seen that my father was very proud and happy. This is one of the few small memories that I have of my father. I began by dreaming that my father, who is no longer with me, would have been glad to see me become a lawyer. As I was growing up, I thought that being a lawyer would help me find traces of his disappearance. I understood how wrong I had been when I grew up.”
Jiyan Tosun has been working at the Legal Aid Bureau against Sexual Harassment and Rape in Custody for 17 years. Initially working as a secretary at the bureau, she then started doing fieldwork. She has been contributing as a lawyer for the last three years. She has also worked with the Commission Against Racism and Discrimination of the İHD. She is a member of the Prison Commission and LGBTI+ Commission.
Jiyan Tosun was taken under custody during the press statement held by the Commission Against Racism and Discrimination of the İHD on the Armenian Genocide on April 24th, 2018. She then was investigated on the charges of “inciting the public to hatred and enmity", and “degrading the Turkish nation”; however a decision of non-prosecution was made.
The same year, a call for support was made for the 700th gathering of the Saturday People that was to be held on August 25th. However, the group that formed on the morning of Saturday, August 25th was informed that their gathering in the square was banned by the Beyoğlu Governorship. Saturday People, Human Rights Association (İHD) executives and members, and others that came for support were assaulted with water cannons, rubber bullets, and pepper gas. 47 people including Jiyan Tosun were taken into custody and released after 8 hours. Later on, the 46 people that had been in custody were sued for up to 3 years imprisonment on the charges of violating Article 32/1 of the “Law on Meetings and Demonstrations”. This lawsuit is still going on.
Jiyan Tosun was taken into custody once again along with 16 others on June 25th, 2022, while making their statement at the Galatasaray Square on the 900th-week meeting of Saturday People. The investigation on Tosun resulted in a verdict of non-prosecution.
On November 13th, 2022, a bomb attack on Istiklal Street resulted in the death of six people and 81 injuries. Ahmet Taşkaya from the Victory Party targeted Jiyan Tosun as the perpetrator of this attack from his social media account. Even though he deleted his post after receiving backlash, Tosun and her close ones started getting death threats. Taşkaya defended himself by saying, “I got the information from Telegram and shared it. I deleted it in three minutes.” Jiyan Tosun appealed to the Istanbul Governorship for close protection but her request has been unanswered since December 13th, 2022.
In January 2023, an indictment was prepared against Taşkaya, who targeted Tosun. The Prosecutor's Office demanded that Taşkaya be punished for "insulting with an audio, written or video message" and "unlawfully seizing or disseminating personal data". The first hearing was held on May 30, 2023 and Adem Taşkaya was given a reduced sentence of 3 years, 17 months and 10 days in prison.
