The Horrific Extent of Police Brutality in Turkey

8/6/13. What you will read below is extreme­ly dis­turb­ing. It is the first­hand impres­sions of a Boğaz­içi (Bospho­rus) Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent who was detained by police in con­nec­tion with the Gezi Park inci­dents in Istan­bul.

Erkan Yolalan first thanks every­body who has assist­ed him, espe­cial­ly to those who fetched him a lawyer.
Here is his sto­ry:

“I am at home, I’m fine. I want to write what I went through. My only aim is that every­body knows what is being expe­ri­enced while in deten­tion. I have no oth­er aim; I want to say that at the begin­ning. I will write all of the events that hap­pened to me from the begin­ning and with all swear words and insults includ­ed. With all its open­ness…

“Last night (June 3, 2013) around 9 p.m. I was detained in Beşik­taş, at traf­fic lights on Bar­baros Avenue. I was not involved in any action like swear­ing or throw­ing stones. They took me in bend­ing my arm the moment they saw me. Some friends of mine saw on TV how I was tak­en into cus­tody. Then hell began.

“After cross­ing the lights in the direc­tion of the sea­side, while I was at the edge of the plat­form where the IETT bus stops are at the sea­side, any police­man who was there and any riot police squad mem­ber (çevik kuvvet) who saw me start­ed kick­ing and punch­ing me. For about 100–150 meters, in oth­er words, all the way to the Kadıköy fer­ry sta­tion, who­ev­er was present there was kick­ing and punch­ing. Insults and curs­es such as ‘Are you the ones to save this coun­try, moth­er f***, sons of ****,’ nev­er end­ed. I could not count how many peo­ple hit me before I reached the deten­tion bus.

“Just as I was tak­en near the bus­es, a few police­men called from behind a bus, ‘Bring him here.’ They took me behind the bus and start­ed kick­ing and punch­ing me there. I learned lat­er that because of the cam­eras they took me behind the bus to beat me.

“When I was inside the deten­tion bus (İETT) the lights were out, and I heard a girl’s voice beg­ging inside the bus: ‘I did not do any­thing, sir.’ I could not even see who was hit­ting me as I was tak­en inside the bus and after I was in the bus. The only thing I was able to do in the dark was to cov­er my head. Curs­es and insults con­tin­ued. I sat. Every­one who was pass­ing near me was hit­ting me. I got up and went to a cor­ner. They want­ed me to take a seat again. I told them every­one who passed by was hit­ting me when I was seat­ed.

They again swore, slapped and punched me and made me sit. 

“They were hit­ting the girl and throt­tling her. A civil­ian police­man whose name is İsm­ail said exact­ly this to the girl, ‘I will bend you over and f*** you right now.’ [He – Erkan Yolalan- lat­er added that this police­man İsm­ail also said, “Now that it is dark and the lights are off I will ****”] 

“And the response of the girl was heart­break­ing. With a low voice, she could only say ‘Yes, sir.’
“And next, we, the three peo­ple present at the bus, were forced to shout: ‘I love the Turk­ish police. I love my coun­try.’ They made us yell this again and again ordered us to make it ‘loud­er, loud­er.’ The insults and beat­ing did not come to an end.

“The atmos­phere seemed a bit calmer, but this time they brought anoth­er young per­son. The guy’s nose was bro­ken. When I asked him why he didn’t pro­tect his face, he told me ‘Two peo­ple held me by force and a third per­son punched my nose three times.’ From time to time there were oth­ers brought in. 

“A young per­son named Mustafa from Bahçeşe­hir Uni­ver­si­ty was brought then. Twen­ty police­men from the riot squad had attacked him, and he looked too weak even to stand up. Slap­ping and punch­ing him near the deten­tion bus was not enough for them, they hit his head with a hel­met. That was not enough either, they hit his head on the bus win­dow. They took him inside the bus while con­tin­u­ous­ly hit­ting him. His hands were cuffed from behind; his head was bleed­ing; they made him sit on the floor. 

“We saw his head bleed­ing. I went near him and held a cloth (the bloody t‑shirt of the guy whose nose was bro­ken) to his wound to stop the bleed­ing. This police named Süley­man cursed at me and told me to ‘f*** off’ to my seat. I told him, ‘He is bleed­ing.’ He said, ‘He can bleed.’ He did not care at all. They were hold­ing the guy in hand­cuffs with all his injuries. We point­ed that out to a cou­ple of police­men. Final­ly, one of them opened the cuffs.

“Actu­al­ly the sec­ond heart­break­ing inci­dent hap­pened when we were at the police sta­tion for state­ments. Mustafa asked me this: ‘Did they hit me at the bus? What hap­pened?’ The guy could not remem­ber. He was not ful­ly con­scious while he was on the bus.

“As a last point, we could not go to the toi­let while we were at the bus. They only gave us a bot­tle of water. Then we were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal for doctor’s reports and then to the police sta­tion.  

“Once we were at the police sta­tion, an army of lawyers was wait­ing for us. And the police­men now were talk­ing to us on polite terms.

“I want to thank all the lawyers, all our friends who called the lawyers and every­body who was wor­ried about us. There is not a bit of an exag­ger­a­tion in this piece. Every­thing that has been expe­ri­enced is true and my only aim is for every­body to hear it first­hand.

Revolt against bru­tal­i­ty is con­tin­u­ing. This fas­cist order will be destroyed.”