)The missing people of Turkey have become a national issue ) ) ) )                                        The Financial Times )                                           11 May 1996 ) ) In March last year Hasan Ocak a Kurdish shopkeeper living in Istanbul )vanished during a security crackdown. Relatives found his )  body nearly two months later buried in an indigents' cemetery. Although )two witnesses say the saw him in an Istanbul detention )    centre the government denies he was ever held. The Ocak case rapidly )became a cause célčbre. Turkey's Human Rights ) Association declared May 17, the day on which his body was found to be the )national day of the disappeared. Some like Ocak are )  beaten and tortured to death, then interred as indigents. Until now, )courts accepted the police and the security' denials without )   question. The Ocak affair and the disappearance in January of Metin )Goktepe, a journalist has led the media and courts to )   question the security forces' role. Even Adnan Ekmen, the government's )human rights minister, traditionally a figure of only )  symbolic importance, admitted that what is clear is that Metin was taken )into custody and he was killed in custody. Pressure ) from the media, human rights organisations and from overseas forced )prosecutors to begin legal proceedings against more than 20 )  police officers suspected of involvement in his death. Turkish security )are applying the same methods as their Latin American ) counterparts of the 1970s, who first used disappearance to silence )political opposition. It seems fitting then, that Turkey's human ) rights movement should use the same approach as Laatin American )campaigners, like Argentina's mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. )  They have gathered every Thursday in front of the presidential palace in )Buenos Aires for 20 years to demand the government ) account for the 16,000 people abducted and presumed murdered by the )1976-83 military regime. Like the friends and relatives of )   Turkey's disappeared gather every Saturday on Istiklal Caddesi, )crowded pedestrian precinct, to demand the release of the )              missing. Turkey is under increasing international pressure to )improve its human rights record. ) ) ) )Hanife )