A man who was detained in Istanbul claimed he was tied to a chair and beaten for two hours by the police, the Duvar news website reported.
Yılmaz Uzun was detained with three others during a fight in Istanbul’s Gaziosmanpaşa district. He was taken to a police station where he was allegedly beaten by three police officers. Uzun said he lost consciousness and was taken to a hospital, where doctors kept him under observation fearing a brain hemorrhage.
“I remember seeing my own blood on the floor,” said Uzun. “I don’t remember the rest or if they continued beating me after I passed out. I was in the hospital for five days.”
Another detainee, identified as K.B., said he was taken to a back room where there were no cameras. “The police officers threatened me,” he said. “They told me exactly what to say during interrogation.”
Uzun said he filed a complaint with the Gaziosmanpaşa Public Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecutor requested a report from the Council of Forensic Medicine to confirm Uzun had been beaten and camera recordings from the police station.
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu submitted a parliamentary question addressing Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu in which he asked if the allegations of mistreatment had been investigated.
“Has the ministry taken these claims seriously and launched an investigation into the perpetrators?” he asked.
Ill-treatment and torture have become widespread and systematic in Turkish detention centers and prisons. Lack of condemnation from higher officials and a readiness to cover up allegations rather than investigate them have resulted in widespread impunity for the security forces.
An annual report by Amnesty International (AI) on the state of human rights in the world revealed that serious and credible allegations of torture and other ill-treatment were made in Turkey last year.
In its annual human rights report on Turkey, the US Department of State listed credible reports of arbitrary killings, suspicious deaths of persons in custody, forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest and the continued detention of tens of thousands of persons for purported ties to “terrorist” groups or peaceful legitimate speech as being among the significant human rights issues in the country.
