55-year-old Kevser Demir, living in the Bağlar district of Turkey’s Kurdish majority province of Diyarbakır (Amed) filed a complaint against the police officers who battered her during the detention of her son.
Demir’s three teeth and arm were broken during the police assault.
Diyarbakır Governorate on 26th May issued a written statement regarding the incident. “The allegations of police violence do not reflect the truth. During the detention, the family members resisted against the police and used violence against the police,” read the Governorate’s statement.
Demir talked to MA regarding the police violence she suffered on 18th May and responded to the statement issued by the governorate.
Citing what happened during the 18th May when police came to detain her son, Demir said: “Voices were coming from downstairs. Then I heard my son’s voice saying, ‘Mom, they are killing me, help me’. I called out to the police and told them, ‘If he has committed crime, detain him, but do not batter him.”
After Demir ended this sentence, it was at that very moment when the police attacked her and began dragging her by her hair.
“With kicks and slaps they dragged me. When they hit my arm, I lost consciousness. I woke up with my arm and three of my teeth broken. My daughter helped me back to our apartment after I woke up, but then the police returned again and they battered my daughter as well and they verbally insulted us with unmentionable swear words,” she said.
The police officer who battered Demir and her daughter told her that he was “boxing fighter” before and just before he left, he punched the 55-year-old woman on her chest.
The police officer who battered Demir is still threatening the family by showing up at their neighbourhood. “He still comes in my neighbourhood, yells at me in the middle of the street threatening me,” she said.
This officer claimed in his initial testimony that the 55-year-old woman attacked him and not vice versa.
“The police are lying, I never intervened against them,” Demir said.
“Did I break my own teeth and arm as well? Did I hurt myself in my neck, too? He claims that I bit him, I swear, such a thing never happened. If he is telling the truth, let him go and take a medical report documenting the harm that he claims I caused him. No. They are lying to save themselves.”
