Radikal: Police said, “If you are a lawyer, what are you doing here, whore?”

Crime report from the Ankara bar association: The police have committed the crime of torture that is not compatible with human dignity, and they have deployed disproportionate violence. They have beaten people who declared, “I am a lawyer.”

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The Ankara Bar Council has lodged a crime report and demanded the identity, and started a criminal case against the police officers who were responsible for the injury to the Lawyer Özge Elif Durak and the Junior Barrister Eda Ayşegül Akyol during the Gezi protests. The Bar pleaded that the police have committed the crime of torture that is not compatible with human dignity, and they have deployed disproportionate violence.

She said, ‘I am a lawyer,’ and was beaten

In the report submitted by the Ankara Bar, the violence that Junior Barrister Eda Ayşegül Akyol was subjected to is described as follows: During the police intervention in the Atatürk Boulevard on the 2nd of June, Ms. Akyol, who  was affected by the tear gas, was trying to find somewhere to avoid it. She found herself amongst a group of police officers who started to beat her with batons. Ms. Akyol told the police officers that she was a lawyer. They continued to beat her and started to swear: “If you are a lawyer, what are you doing here, dirty whore?” Due to the heavy blows, Ms. Akyol fainted  and fell down. Someone from the crowd covered her and tried to sheild and deflect the blows with his body. Even while the protesters were trying to take Ms. Akyol to an infirmary, the police continued to beat her.

Similarly,  on the same day in the Atatürk Boulevard when she said she was a lawyer, Özge Elif Durak was beaten. She was brought to the Numune Hospital to be treated.

The Ankara Bar has noted that these acts of violence towards lawyers are against  human rights principles that are guaranteed by international conventions. The Bar has demanded that the police officers concerned should be identified by scanning the video images of surveillance cameras in that boulevard and the police officers should be brought to the court.

Mehmet Bilber
5 July 2013
Source:  radikal.com.tr

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