İSTANBUL - Berkin Elvan would have turned 21 years old today if he had not been fatally hit by a tear gas bullet from the police during the Gezi protests in the summer of 2013.

 

Berkin Elvan was 14 years old when he tried only to buy bread during the Gezi protests in Istanbul on 16 June 2013 and was hit in the head by a tear gas bullet from the police. After nine months in a coma, he died on 11 March 2014 from the bullet wound inflicted on him. In the end he weighed only 16 kilograms.

 

If Berkin Elvan had not been attacked by the police, he would have turned 21 years old today. The High School Students' Association took his birthday as an opportunity to commemorate him at the crime scene in the Istanbul district of Okmeydanı.

 

Like almost all protests, vigils and public commemoration events, this meeting took place under a police blockade. Gülsüm Elvan, the mother of the killed boy, had clear words for the action of the authorities: "The police should be ashamed to the ground. You are to be pitied."

 

She said she would have liked to celebrate her son's birthday in a different way. "But Berkin is alive, he's not dead. Every one of these children here is Berkin," Elvan said, demanding justice for all children killed by Turkish security forces.

 

In memory of Berkin, the students let lanterns rise into the sky. Nazlı Yöyler of the students’ association drew attention in a speech to the fight for justice for Berkin Elvan and reminded that the crime scene inspection in the trial of the boy's death was ordered only about six years after the deadly attack. "These sky lanterns stand for us as a sign of justice. They are lanterns for Berkin, for Ceylan Önkol, for the 33 dream travelers who were murdered in Suruç, and all the other children who were killed. We will continue our fight for justice."