O.K., a purge victim in Zonguldak province who was detained on Aug. 1 last year over links to faith-based Gülen movement, was tortured by police officers in a room without surveillance, stripped naked, beaten for 22 days and threatened with raping his wife.
According to a story in Aktif Haber news portal, O.K. was detained on Aug. 1 over links to Gülen movement, inspired by US-based Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen who Turkish authorities accuse of being behind a failed coup attempt in July last year, and arrested by a court after 22 days of detention.
O.K. has written letters to judicial authorities about the torture he was subjected to during his in police custody in Zonguldak. However, O.K. was arrested on charges of being a member of “terrorist organization.”
Denying the accusations against him during the questioning in Zonguldak Police Department in 22 days of detention, O.K. was forced to confess crimes he was not involved and was subjected to torture which effected his physical and psychological health.
During the first days of his detention, O.K. was held in Soğuksu Police Station and Çaydamar Public Security Office where his eardrum was burst after a police punched him on the ear while forcing him to confess he was the “imam” of Gülen movement in charge of police officers in Zonguldak.
Following a doctor report proving he was battered, O.K. was transferred to Zonguldak Police Department where police officers continued to torture him in a room without CCTV surveillance.
In order to degrade him, police officers stripped him naked and kept him leaned for hours.
Rejecting the accusations and to sign a testimony which was prepared by police, O.K. was psychologically depressed after police officers called him “dishonorable” for days. He started to talk to himself saying “I am not a dishonorable person.”
Police officers sometimes offered tea to O.K. who was severely beaten following drinking the tea which made him dizzy. Because of police beating O.K. for days, parts of his legs were bruised and he started to have treatment in hospital for vascular occlusion due to torture.
Having seen O.K. resisting to sign pre-arranged testimony despite severe torture, police officers told him that they will take his wife from his home to rape.
According to O.K.’s letters, several people signed those pre-arranged testimonies after they were subjected to severe torture.
The pre-arranged testimony for O.K. include confessions such as; “I have attended to the coup attempt” and “We kept nails of Gülen for they are sacred.”
After being subjected to severe physical and psychological torture in police custody for 22 days, O.K. didn’t hug children and hold hands of his wife when he was taken to court for his hearing due to the threatening made by police officers to rape her.
According to O.K.’s family, he has lost a lot of weight, has a serious vascular occlusion problem and has permanent hearing impairment due to torture under police custody.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the coup “a great gift of God” and pinned the blame on the Gülen movement, inspired by US-based Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Over 135,000 people, including thousands within the military, have been purged due to their real or alleged connection to the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, according to a statement by the labor minister on Jan. 10. As of Feb. 1, Over 91,600 people were detained, 45,012 people were jailed with pre-trial arrest due to their alleged links to the movement. (turkishminute.com) Feb. 22, 2017
