Category Archives: Interviews

Turkey Account of Violence: “ The ones who are weak are not the women, but the ones who perceive us as weak!”

eylemo

The Turkish police don’t hold back in prosecuting their own punishment mechanisms while intervening in the protests which have spread nationwide. With the aim of being the security force, the prosecutor and the judge all at the same time, the police not only torture but also sexually harasses the protesters they have detained or taken into custody. Eylem Karadağ, who [...] → Read the full article…

Taraf: The volunteer accused of being a “secret agent”

Céline Rousseau, a volunteer from the European Union (EU), recounted what she went through during her arrest because of Gezi incidents: “At the police department, they wanted me to undress. At District Police Department’s Foreigners’ Office in Kumkapi they refused to give me any water to drink. Céline Rousseau was one of the people who were accused as “the Gezi [...] → Read the full article…

Turkey Accounts of Violence: Turkey vs. the Police: Ethem Sarisülük, the Protester Who Was Murdered by the Police

Photo: Doğu Eroğlu

On the second day of the nationwide Gezi Park protests, June 1st, Ethem Sarısülük, a laborer and human-rights activist was shot in the head by a policeman. After spending 11 critical days at the intensive care unit, news of Ethem’s brain death arrived on June 12, only to be followed by his clinical death on June 14. Despite the hard [...] → Read the full article…

FıratNews: Police terror ruins lives

The police terror, described by the PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as “epic”, has another one of its victims, İsmail Aslan, who is an undergraduate of philosophy at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. Aslan, attempting to enter Taksim Square on the 6th of July upon the call for action by Gezi Solidarity Platform, got injured on his forehead by a gas-shell, [...] → Read the full article…

Hürriyet: Volkan, whose eyes were cleared of metal beads

volkan-kesanbilici

Gezi witnessing continues with Volkan who runs a stationery store. He came to Taksim to protest against the police violence on the first day of Gezi and to support the young people. During the rioting there he was shot in the eye by a bullet fired by the police. He was operated on twice. During the second operation, his eye [...] → Read the full article…

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

metin-toprak

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 [...] → Read the full article…

Radikal: Burcu Sarak tells what she’s gone through in the Gezi lockup

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Music group Grup Abdal’s singer Burcu Sarak was taken into custody on the 6th of July. Her mother was also taken into custody because she didn’t want to let the police take her daughter. Burcu Sarak tells what she has gone through in the detention house: “They made my friend strip stark naked; they insulted and swore me; they didn’t [...] → Read the full article…

T24: An Eyewitness Accounts: How Was Ali İsmail Korkmaz Beaten To Death?

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An eyewitness told the day when Ali İsmail Korkmaz was beaten to pulp. Korkmaz passed away in Eskișehir in the hospital where he was treated. The fifth fatality during the Gezi protests occurred yesterday when Ali İsmail Korkmaz passed away due to brain hemorrhage. Korkmaz, 19, was a freshman at the English Teacher Department at the Faculty of Education of [...] → Read the full article…

Firatnews: First police aimed to kill, and then came to pull the plug?

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Two plain-clothes officers posing as well-wishers attempted to enter the Taksim Ilkyardim Hospital Intensive Care Unit where 16-year-old Mustafa Ali Tombul was being treated after a tear gas canister broke his skull. Tombul, a high school student, had brain surgery after being injured during demonstrations in the Tarlabaşı neighborhood of Istanbul. New details relating to the police assault on Mustafa [...] → Read the full article…

Hürriyet: The lawyer of the Gezi detainees, ‘Cops beat us up in the courthouse’

caglayan-adliyesi

Last Saturday night, the police detained 59 demonstrators who wanted to enter Gezi Park. Among the detainees only 8 of them were issued arrest warrants. In the Çağlayan courthouse, where those 8 protestors were held, it was claimed that three lawyers representing the protestors, two of which are women, were battered by the police because they wanted to take to [...] → Read the full article…