Lawyer testifies to being beaten by Turkish troops in military headquarters

A lawyer who was subjected to violence at a gendarmerie (a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population) headquarters in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority city of Yüksekova (Gever) on Sunday said that this was the second time within a year lawyers have been subjected to violence on instructions by the same gendarmerie officer, and that the headquarters the officer was in command of already had a reputation for systematic torture.

Lawyer Harika Günay Karataş, the branch co-chair of the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD), filed a criminal complaint against the troops who harassed her and dragged her on the ground, and beat her colleague Fırat İke, when the two came to the gendarmerie headquarters to provide legal services for villagers who were detained during a military operation.

Speaking to Mezopotamya News Agency, she explained what happened:

“Villagers who were out in the field to cut grass were taken into custody. When we heard about it, I went to the gendarmerie headquarters with Fırat İke. We were told that the villagers in custody were not actually under arrest, and that they merely came to provide information; but that was legally an arrest, anyway. When we said that we wanted to talk to the villagers, one was brought into the room even as he was subjected to a beating. When we tried to intervene, we were treated in just the same way.”

She added:

“The gendarmerie headquarters in question is already famous for practices of torture. The gendarmerie officer Bayram Konak, who gave instructions for torture in the recent incident, had given similar instructions in another incident last August to have a colleague of mine beaten, and for the detained villagers to be subjected to torture.”

She continued:

“We were subjected to violence as we were dragged out of the headquarters. My colleague received a rough beating inside the guardhouse. They grabbed my arms and legs, and dragged me on the ground. I had bruises all over my body. I was subjected to discriminative insults.”

Lawyer Fırat İke said:

“This treatment by the state against Kurds is not something new. Just as they try to liquidate the political movement, they are trying to do the same thing to lawyers. They want to liquidate us and leave the Kurds defenceless.”