Letter: CCR Sends Letter to President Obama, Urges U.S. Investigation into Killing of U.S. Citizen on Gaza Flotilla

May 16, 2013 -- Just two weeks before the third anniversary of the killing of Furkan Doğan by Israeli forces during an attack on a humanitarian flotilla to Gaza in 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) sent a letter to President Obama calling upon him to finally publicly acknowledge the killing of 18 year old U.S. citizen Furkan Doğan by Israel and support a U.S. investigation into his death. The flotilla attack and the deaths of eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American were mentioned today by Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdoğan during his press conference with President Obama, demonstrating the importance Turkey places on this issue.
 
 
Background:
 
Two years ago, the Center for Constitutional Rights launched a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking documents that the United States government had refused to provide regarding its knowledge of and role in the 2010 attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla where nine civilians, among them Furkan Doğan, a U.S. citizen, were killed. Furkan was shot several times from behind as he was filming the 4:00 a.m. raid, and then shot in the face at point blank range as he lay wounded. Fifteen other U.S. citizens participated in the flotilla, including five who traveled on a U.S. registered boat; many were beaten and injured.
 
Since the filing of the FOIA case, CCR has reviewed thousands of pages of documents detailing the U.S. reaction to the flotilla attack obtained from the U.S. government through the litigation. See, for example, the guide to FOIA documents specifically regarding the U.S. response to the killing of Furkan Dogan.  For other production guides, a legal analysis of the attack on the flotilla, and more information about both the attack and CCR’s FOIA case see the  Center’s legal case page.
 
 

Last modified 

May 16, 2013