A court in eastern Turkey has sentenced to prison two women from a family that suffered mistreatment at the hands of police officers in 2018 for resisting and insulting the officers, the Mezopotamya news agency (MA) reported.
Ayfer Şahin and her daughter Şehriban Mamuk were sentenced to 33 months in prison. An investigation had been launched after the officers complained that they were attacked during a raid of the family home, culminating in the trial of the two women.
Mamuk, the mother of a 3-year-old, had to take her child with her to the prison, the report said.
Living in the eastern province of Van, the family had reportedly suffered a violent house raid by the police in July 2018. Members of the family were physically assaulted and eight people were detained, two of whom were minors.
Mamuk was among those detained and spent 15 months in pretrial detention, along with her older child who was two years old at the time.
Speaking to MA, Mamuk said they were mistreated during the raid.
“They told us to go outside. When we did, they made us lie on the ground and tortured us,” Mamuk said. “My father was put in intensive care afterward, and my aunt, who was three months pregnant at the time, had a miscarriage. My mother vomited blood for six months.”
She also said the hospitals did not fully document their injuries and simply reported rashes instead.
Mamuk said they were also mistreated in prison after being arrested.
Since the 1980s, Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish east and southeast have been the scene of an armed conflict between the state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an insurgent group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.
Turkish security forces are frequently criticized for using disproportionate force against civilians and mistreating detainees suspected of involvement in the PKK.
