Fıratnews: Who says there’s no torture at Police Stations in Istanbul?

Some people may continuously claim that there is no torture at the police station anymore, Metin Toprak says, yet, they were exposed to all kinds of psychological torture including naked body search, insulting, being dragged on the ground, preventing the need to use toilet. Metin Toprak is a chef cook and he was detained and his nose was broken by a chief police officer on the opening day of Gezi park. He also states that police officers even did not want to give them water and insulted them by saying “drink water from the toilet”. He talked about his experiences to ANF.

metin-toprak

Metin Toprak was among the people who were detained on the 6th July 2013, the opening day of Gezi park. Fired from his job on 30th May, on the grounds that he supported Gezi park resistance, the chef cook Toprak started to demand justice for his democratic rights within the scope of Gezi park resistance.

The  ground for battery and detention: To carry a Helmet 

27 year old Toprak, who came to the Taksim square on 6th of July upon the call of Taksim Solidarity, just as usual in every Saturday, reports his experience: “Police intervention had already started when I arrived at the Taksim Square from Tarlabaşı, the place where I live in. I was battered by a chief police officer in Balo street, where I had taken shelter in İstiklal street, just because I was wearing a bicycle helmet. That chief police officer pulled my bag, punched me on my nose and ordered the riot squad to detain me. I had been kicked and insulted brutally inside the police bus where they put me for transferrring to the police headquarters. This inhumane treatment continued in the police headquarters as well”.

Drink water from the toilet, they said.

When I arrived at the Security Headquarters, I realized that 52 other people were also detained, among whom there were Mücella Yapıcı and Ali Çerkezoğlu. I was taken to the Bakırköy State Hospital at 23.00 pm. I had an X-ray there, revealing that my nose was broken from two different points. When I was taken back at Security Headquarters, despite my objections, they conducted a naked body search. All of us, 52 people, started a hunger strike to protest these arbitrary treatments. They were asking us to sign papers even when we ask for drinking water . When we opposed it, police officers mocked us by saying that we can drink water from the toilet. They tried to take our testimonies but we used our right to remain silent. Treating us like a guilty people, they enforced us to give our fingerprints and be photographed but when we refused, they dragged us on the ground and took our fingerprints by force. Two police officers, one standing on our left and the other on the right, twisted our wrists to force us to pose and they then took our photographs. When we were taken to the hospital, they treated us like dogs. They handcuffed our hands from back and insulted us relentlessly.

We were kept in stuffy cells, 7 floors down for 3 hours

Toprak stated that after 3 days of torment and torture at the Police Headquarters, they were put in stuffy cells, which is 7 floors down from the ground floor of Çağlayan Courthouse. He said that, “46 people, we were made to wait for 3 hours in a stuffy cell. The questioning in the courthouse was no better than the treatment we experienced during the detainment. The prosecutor asked me nonsense questions like what I had in my bag, why I was going to Taksim etc. Soon, they will even ask why we are breathing”. Toprak also mentioned that he made a criminal complaint about the chief police officer who punched him and said, “I haven’t seen before such inhumane treatment in my life. Yet, they shamelessly claim that there is no torture in police stations. What will you call all these things I had to live, if not torturing? I am going to use my democratic rights till the end”. Toprak called for public opinion and asked all the people who were subject to police violence to make a criminal complaint.

Zeynep Kuray
12 July 2013
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