On the evening of 24 September, two individuals claiming to be undercover police officers tried to force their way into the home of a member of parliament in the Turkish capital Ankara.
Tülay Hatimoğulları, MP for Hatay and deputy co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), held a press conference five days later to inform the public of the incident.
At the press conference, which was not attended by Turkish news agencies and media outlets, Hatimoğulları told the reporters who were present about the incident and how state officials had subsequently resisted treating the incident as a case that called for investigation.
Hatimoğulları said that when the two men at her door insisted that she open it, she told them that she was a member of parliament and nobody, including the police, could enter her house in that fashion.
“I told them that I would call the police station. This went on for a few minutes,” she said. “Meanwhile I made calls to colleagues from the Party, my lawyer and my consultants. We called the police too. Later we watched from the window as they left. They went towards the Esat crossroads on foot.”
She then explained what happened when her lawyer went to the prosecution to lodge a criminal complaint:
“He said he talked to seven or eight prosecutors and they all refused to lodge the complaint. He then talked to the duty prosecutor. He denied even being the duty prosecutor! So openly! I have no words… he was so relaxed about it! Then, when my lawyer put the duty chart on his desk, he finally realised that; yes, he was the duty prosecutor, and yes, he had to file the complaint.”
Hatimoğulları said that although the police told her it was a suspicious incident, they didn’t give any information to her on what was suspicious about it:
‘We also asked for the security camera footage to be investigated quickly. But they haven’t provided with any information on that either.’
