Istanbul: Police kidnapped an anarchist
anarchist - 02.08.2007 14:24
Istanbul: Police kidnapped an anarchist, beat him, and threw him from the
moving police car
POLICE KIDNAPPED OUR COMRADE, BEAT HIM AND THREW FROM THE MOVING POLICE
CAR
Sinan Tekpetek, legally responsible of biweekly anarchist newspaper
"Ozgur
Hayat" and the youth movement %52's magazine "%52 Ofke", was attacked
by police
on July 26th. That's how the incident happened:
On that evening at 11:30 pm., in Taksim, one of Istanbul's central
districts,
Sinan was stopped by police and asked his ID Card. Police checked his
records
on police's database, afterwards gave back him his ID Card, and quite
politely
let him go. Sinan went on walking, but after 5 minutes a police car
approached
him and three policemen took Sinan into the car violently. In the car
they
consistently hit Sinan, used pepper gas on his face repeatedly. Sinan
couldn't
raise his head and so he couldn't see where he was taken. After almost
15
minutes, the car stopped in a place where Sinan could only see the
historical
'city wall's. Here the violence went on, and two more police cars came,
10 or
11 policemen in total hit Sinan repeatedly with fists and batons,
kicked,
sweared him, used pepper gas on him, and threatened him ("we'll kill
you") with
their guns. This violence went on about one and a half hour. Then they
took him
again in one car and drove. While the car was moving (with a speed like
40
km/h) they threw Sinan from the car without stopping. The time was
approximately 01:30 am.
Sinan stayed lying there for some time, and after he recovered a bit,
went to a
hospital.
Sinan's two ribs are broken, his body is full of severe bruises (his
face,
especially his left ear, and his back is full of baton traces). When he
was
thrown from the car, he fell on his back, so it's only a chance that he
was not
injured worse, even dead!
It seems the attack was planned, as when Sinan's ID was taken, there
were
surveillance cameras which can view the police car, but where he was
taken by
force, there were no cameras or nobody around. Also, police did not
take any
records, so it was not custody in its legal sense. Police kidnapped
Sinan in
the heart of Istanbul, tortured, and attempted to kill him!
In recent weeks, with the pretext of "security against terror" the
government
made changes in the police law, which henceforth extends police
authority.
After this change, police repression increased. Only in Taksim-Beyoglu
district
at least similar 22 incidents occurred in recent months these are only
the ones
that Human Rights Association recorded; HRA and we are sure that there
are more
incidents in which the aggrieved are scared and so stayed silent.
This "perfect murder" attempt is a part of systematic attack of the
police. Not
only the social strugglers, many people have been attacked, beaten,
tortured in
similar ways.
We are not silent, it won't be that easy for the state to attack
people! The
campaign is going on. So far we made the attackl heard by many people,
the
incident was published in many newspapers and on many websites.
We see that police longs for the days in the 1990's, in which they
kidnapped,
"punished", and killed many people. Today we and many people, who
advocate
freedom and humanity, raise voice against this systematic attack and
support
Sinan. And as the support and solidarity rises, the state repression on
us is
also increasing.
We want all anarchists and anti-authoritarians know what's happening in
Istanbul
nowadays. Evidently, the state repression will increase, but we'll
confront. And
we want you to be sure that our rising struggle for freedom will
prevent the
state's attack on people!
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