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Turkish police raid Kurdish party HDP offices in Istanbul, detain 5 party members

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HDP HQPolice officers from the counterterrorism unit of the İstanbul Police Department raided the Beyoğlu district building of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) early on Friday and detained five of its members.

Media reports say riot police and special ops teams also participated in the raid, which took place at around 7 a.m. Police officers arrived in armored vehicles and were backed by helicopters.

HDP Beyoğlu branch Co-chair Rukiye Demir and four others were detained during the raid, reports say.

The police’s search of the building lasted several hours. According to media reports, the raid was conducted as part of an investigation into the activities of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) — an affiliate of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — in İstanbul’s Beyoğlu and Şişli districts.

Several HDP district officials were also previously detained in police raids that have being conducted since the June 7 parliamentary election. The HDP accuses the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government of seeking to punish it for its success in the inconclusive June election that deprived the ruling AK Party of its single-party majority in Parliament.

The renewed hostilities have wrecked efforts to establish lasting peace and have sparked some of the worst clashes in the 29-year-old PKK insurgency. Deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union, the PKK launched its armed campaign for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984. The conflict has cost the country more than 40,000 lives.

Keywords: HDP , Beyoğlu

Terrorist State of Turkey Police detain 50 students in fight at İstanbul University

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ISTANBUL UNIVERSITESI EDEBIYAT FAKULTESI ONUNDE BASIN ACIKLAMASI YAPAN OGRENICILERE TEKBIR GETIREN 5 KISI TAS SOPA VE SODA SISELERIYLE SALDIRDI POLIS SALDIRGANLARI YAKA-PACA GOZALTINA ALDI(FOTO SULEYMAN KAYA ISTANBUL DHA)

(FOTO SULEYMAN KAYA ISTANBUL DHA)

A fight early on Friday at İstanbul University between two student groups ended with police detaining 50 students.

Turkish media reported that the fight broke out at the university’s Beyazıt campus between two groups of students attacking each other with stones and sticks. Police had to intervene and detain 50 students involved in the clash. Security measures have been tightened around the campus. The reason the scuffle broke out was not immediately apparent.

Some students were heard chanting “Muslim youth” as they were being detained.

Turkey Dink murder probe: Gunman followed by police while killing Turkish-Armenian journalist

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f564f1b6b568d3_564f1b6b5690e.thumbThe criminal investigation into the murder of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian editor-in-chief of the Istanbul-based bilingual weekly Agos, has revealed new details
According to Milliyet, Ogun Samast, the Turkish ultra-nationalist who shot Dink dead in broad daylight outside his office in January 2007, was followed by plain-clothed police officers while committing the crime.
Before gunning down Dink, Samast reportedly made three phone calls whose records weren’t later deciphered.
What’s even more, the phone-booths he used were moved to another area after the murder.
The six policemen were seen in the video records obtained during the probe.
The Turkish publication claims that Samast was followed both before and after committing the murder. He was sentenced to 22 years in jail in July 2011.

Turkey: 44 detained by police for allegedly acting beyond legal authority

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232309Forty-four people including former police chiefs, provincial governors and civil servants were detained by police on Tuesday on charges of acting beyond their legal authorities.

The detainees, who have only been identified by their initials, include former İzmir Police Chief A.B., former İzmir Deputy Police Chief M.A.Ş., three provincial governors, a deputy governor, former Afyon Police College head M.K., former civil inspector F.İ. and a number of other police officers and bureaucrats.

The Cihan news agency has reported that İzmir Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Okan Bato ordered the detention of 57 suspects. The city’s anti-smuggling and organized crime unit then conducted raids that were centered in the province of İzmir but extended to 17 other cities and detained 44 individuals. The order was given by the prosecutor without a court order on the grounds that the case was urgent.

İsmail Hakkı Küçük, a lawyer of one of the suspects, told Cihan that a prosecutor can give detention orders for urgent cases but it criticized the fact that it was given for police officers on duty. “Do not be surprised if the prosecutor also rules to arrest them. They do not feel the need for a judge. They are violating the rights of 57 people with the detention orders. Why is the case so urgent?” Küçük said.

The İzmir Public Prosecutor’s Office has released a written statement on the operation in which it claims the suspects are members of the “parallel structure.” The term “parallel structure” was invented by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to refer to followers of the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, a grassroots initiative inspired by the ideas of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Erdoğan made the elimination of the “parallel structure” a priority after a major corruption scandal involving people in his inner circle came to public attention with a wave of detentions on Dec. 17, 2013. Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time of the scandal, framed the corruption investigation as a “plot against his government” by the Hizmet movement and foreign collaborators.

The detentions have targeted the police officers, members of the judiciary and bureaucrats who carried out operations against a military espionage gang based in İzmir in 2011.

The İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the spy ring, whose members stand accused of obtaining classified military information to sell to third parties. The suspects are also accused of hiring foreign sex workers to send to military officers. The sex workers would illegally obtain personal information about the officers and blackmail them into providing the spy ring with classified information. The group is based in İzmir but reportedly has branches in provinces including İstanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Antalya, Muğla, Manisa, Zonguldak and Ordu.

The indictment by the İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office about the case states that the gang had a complicated structure and that it carried out activities to damage the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the government.

Then-Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said during an interview in 2013 that he was examining documents seized by police as part of an operation against a military espionage gang and that he was considering becoming a co-plaintiff in the case against the gang. Some of the documents are said to include personal information about Arınç.

“I see that there are things that concern me, too. There are also issues related to [Deputy Prime Minister] Ali Babacan,” Arınç said.

Ministers and members of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government expressed their support for probes targeting gangs with connections in the military at the time. Critics of the government later speculated that the AK Party used the probes as part of its project to tame the TSK, which had dominated Turkish politics for decades.

After Erdoğan launched a campaign against the Gülen movement after the Dec. 17 scandal and redesigned the police and the judiciary, police launched investigations against the bureaucrats, members of the judiciary and police who had carried out investigations against major criminal networks, some of them targeting Erdoğan and members of his government.

‘Judiciary is subordinate to government’

According to Ahmet Gündel, a retired public prosecutor who worked for the Supreme Court of Appeals, the judiciary has been subordinated to the executive arm of government.

Speaking with the Cihan news agency on Tuesday, Gündel said that the detention of police officers, governors and bureaucrats in İzmir was a bad beginning for the new term of the AK Party, which secured enough seats in Parliament to form a single-party government in Sunday’s general election. “If there is any concrete evidence of a crime against anyone, a prosecutor should not wait for the results of an election. The operations in İzmir show that the judiciary is acting in accordance with the government, which goes against the impartiality and independence of the judiciary,” Gündel said.

Noting that many of those who did not vote for the AK Party on Sunday are concerned about their freedoms and rights, Gündel said that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu must keep the promise he made during his victory speech in Ankara on Sunday evening to provide providing freedoms, rights and equal treatment to all citizens.

Source: Zaman

Growing anger against Erdogan, Top police officials sacked after Ankara attacks

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Anakara-police officialThe Turkish interior ministry on Wednesday fired Ankara’s top police chief and two other officials as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted security shortcomings may have led to a double suicide bombing in the capital that killed 97 people, AFP news agency reports.
There has been growing anger against Erdogan and the government for alleged security lapses over the worst attack in modern Turkey’s history Saturday where two suicide bombers blew themselves in a crowd of peace activists.

Announcing the first dismissals in the wake of the disaster, the interior ministry said the chief of Ankara police Kadri Kartal as well the head of the city’s police intelligence and security departments had been sacked.

It said they had been removed on the suggestion of investigators “to allow for a healthy investigation” into the atrocity.
In his first public remarks over the bombings, Erdogan admitted there were security shortcomings but said their magnitude would be made clear only later.

Turkish police, mourners clash near Ankara blasts site

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Police prevent mourners from approaching the site of recent deadly explosions in Ankara, Turkey, October 11, 2015. ©AP

Police prevent mourners from approaching the site of recent deadly explosions in Ankara, Turkey, October 11, 2015. ©AP

Clashes have erupted in the Turkish capital city of Ankara after police prevented pro-Kurdish politicians and other mourners from laying carnations at the site of the recent deadly blasts.

Thousands of people filled Sihhiye Square, located close to the site of the bombings in central Ankara, to remember the victims of the attacks, with some of them shouting anti-government slogans.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag Senoglu, co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), were held back by police as they tried to approach the site of the incident. Police said that investigators were still working at the explosions’ site.

However, some 70 mourners were eventually allowed to enter the cordoned-off area to pay respect to the victims. They later marched on Sihhiye Square.

On Saturday, twin explosions targeted activists who had convened outside Ankara’s main train station for a peace rally organized by leftist and pro-Kurdish opposition groups. Ankara has said at least 95 people were killed and 246 wounded in the attacks.

Following the blasts, Demirtas said the attack was a repeat of the bombing of an HDP rally in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir ahead of the June 7 elections and a July 20 bombing blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorists in the town of Suruc. He also criticized the Turkish government for its security and intelligence failure to prevent the attacks.

The Turkish government has declared three days of national mourning over the fatal Ankara blasts, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying that there were “strong signs” that the attacks were carried out by two bombers who blew themselves up.

On Saturday night, thousands of people also held a demonstration in the Turkish city of Istanbul in protest against the explosions.

Istanbul: Turkish police attack peace protesters with tear gas as thousands defiantly march in solidarity with 97 people killed

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2D48BC3C00000578-3267368-image-a-1_1444506643695Two explosions tore through the pro-Kurdish peace rally, killing 97 people At least 400 people wounded in the blast near Ankara’s main train station Third deadliest terror attack in Europe, after Lockerbie and Madrid bombs But peace protesters back out on the streets tonight in defiance of terror
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

By TOM WYKE and IMOGEN CALDERWOOD FOR MAILONLINE,

Turkish police have attacked peace protesters who had taken to the streets in a defiant gesture against the terrorists who set off two explosions at a pro-Kurdish rally earlier today, leaving 97 dead.
Thousands flooded the streets of the Istanbul, taking a brave stand against terrorists who targetted an earlier pro-Kurdish peace rally held in the Turkish capital Ankara.
The blasts tore through the crowd this afternoon, leaving up to 400 injured and at least 97 dead.
But police and protesters ended up clashing in the streets of Istanbul, with officers firing tear gas at marchers.

Horrific video footage has emerged of demonstrators holding hands and dancing, but their joy turned to terror as the blast erupted just metres behind them at 10.05am.
The explosion tore through the crowd of people, maiming dozens of innocent bystanders and leaving body parts and debris littering the road.
Pictures which emerged shortly afterwards showed torn fragments of flags and banners people had been waving just moments before littering the ground.
Witnesses described how the blasts, which are believed to have been a terror attack, shook the ground around the city’s main train station.
Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu initially confirmed that 62 people had been killed outright in the blast and a further 24 people had died in hospital.
But the figure is still rising, with the Turkish Medical Association claiming it has now reached almost 100 people and over 400 wounded.
The current death toll, which is expected to increase, makes it the third deadliest attack on Europe, after the Lockerbie bombings in 1988 and the Madrid train bombs of 2004.
Three days of mourning have been announced as the country grieves in the wake of the tragedy.
Emergency services have found themselves struggling to cope with the sheer number of wounded people in the aftermath of the blast.
The flags and banners which were being used to promote Kurdish rights in the demonstration were turned into makeshift stretchers by protesters tending to the injured.

 

Turkey: Trabzon intelligence police knew about Hrant Dink’s hit-man before murder, prosecutor says

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Hrant dink trabzonAn Istanbul prosecutor has unearthed files which show that Trabzon police intelligence had known about Ogün Samast, the hitman in Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink’s murder, before the incident took place.

Gökalp Kökçü, the chief public prosecutor heading the investigation, believes that the Trabzon police intelligence unit was told by Erhan Tuncel, a police informant at the time, that a person named Ogün had been chosen as the hitman for Dink’s murder before the incident took place in Istanbul in January 2007.

Samast assassinated Dink in broad daylight on a busy street outside of the office of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos in Istanbul’s Şişli district. Samast is serving a sentence of 22 years and 10 months in a high-security prison. Yasin Hayal and Tuncel were accused of encouraging Samast to kill Dink in the Black Sea province of Trabzon.

Samast had come to Istanbul for the first time in his life two days before committing the crime from Trabzon. The family of Dink believed that there were more connections and people behind the murder and sought a detailed investigation during the long trial period. Kökçü said Trabzon police were informed about Samast’s ties with those who planned the murder of Dink around four months before the crime took place. Trabzon police previously told the court that they had not had any reports about the issue after April 8, 2006.

Tuncel said in his testimony on Oct. 29, 2013, that he had informed intelligence officers in Trabzon police in September or October 2006 that Hayal had arranged a new shooter. However, Trabzon police did not have any files from Tuncel about the new shooter or that cited the name of Samast.

Police intelligence chief Engin Dinç, meanwhile, gave a file to the prosecutor on Aug. 26 when his testimony was being taken as a suspect. The file showed a report that on Sept. 12, 2006, Tuncel had met with Trabzon intelligence officers Mehmet Ayhan and Mehmet Uçar. Another file about the meeting could not be provided by the Trabzon intelligence unit, leading the prosecutor to conclude that the second file was destroyed.

On Oct. 8, five former police officers recently detained on the charge of negligence in public duty were released, while four others under arrest have been cleared of charges of premeditated murder, forming an illegal organization, and membership in an illegal organization to commit crime in the murder case of Dink.

The nine suspects are reported to have been on duty in police departments in Istanbul, Ankara and Trabzon when Dink was murdered on Jan. 19, 2007.

Former Trabzon Police Department Intelligence Unit head Faruk Sarı, along with former police officers Yılmaz Angın, Bülent Demireleski, Osman Gülbel, Mehmet Ayhan and Onur Karakaya were all released on a ruling issued by the Istanbul 2nd Criminal Court of Peace early Oct. 8 after being detained Oct. 7 on the charge negligence in public duty.

The court ruling also recommended the dismissal of the charges of premeditated murder, forming an illegal organization and membership in an illegal organization to commit crime against four former police officers under arrest in the case, Ramazan Akyürek, Ercan Demir, Özkan Mumcu and Muhittin Zenit.

Akyürek, Zenit, Mumcu and Demir were previously arrested for negligence that caused Dink’s murder and were sent to prison, with the ruling recommending that the four be kept under arrest on the charge of negligence causing death.

At the time of Dink’s murder, Akyürek was the head of the Turkish National Police (EGM) Intelligence Directorate and Demir was the head of the police department in the Cizre district of the southeastern province of Şırnak.

Source: hurriyetdailynews.com

Turkish Authorities Drag Body of Kurdish Man, HDP Files Complaint

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Turkish Police Atrocity against young Kurd

Turkish Police Atrocity against young Kurd

Images and videos surfaced this past weekend that appeared to show an armored police vehicle dragging the body of a Kurdish man tied by the neck to the back of the vehicle.  Much of the state controlled media in the country quickly questioned the authenticity of the footage, but later said it was likely done as safety precaution. The pro-AKP Aksam daily claimed that dragging bodies was a “routine practice” that is performed across the world as a security precaution, for dead bodies suspected of being booby-trapped.

It was later discovered that the body was of Hacı Lokman Birlik, the brother-in-law of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Member of Parliemant Leyla Birlik. Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper said that Birlik was buried after a funeral on Saturday in the Dicle neighborhood in Sirnak, and that local HDP authorities including Leyla Birlik attended the funeral.

While the circumstances of Birlik’s death are still unclear, the HDP held that Birlik was “executed by police,” as security forces attempted to fill in trenches dug by Sirnak residents who wished to keep police out.

During an interview with HaberTurk TV, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reportedly said, “Our interior ministry … will conduct a comprehensive investigation, not into the incident itself, but into the way in which this incident was reflected to the world.”

“It is unacceptable to treat any corpse this way, even if it is a dead terrorist,” Davutoglu was quoted as saying by Reuters.

HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtas tweeted a photo of the incident with a caption vowing not to forget the atrocity that had taken place. “Take a good look at this photo. It was taken in Şırnak the day before yesterday. Nobody should forget this photo, because we will not,” read the caption in Turkish.

On Oct. 7, the HDP said in a written statement that the party’s lawyer had filed a complaint about the incident. The party also began the process of tabling a parliamentary motion condemning the act.

Turkey: Video shows Turkish police putting gun on journalist’s head in curfew town

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230098A video that emerged on Sunday showed a special operations police officer putting his gun on the head of a journalist after the latter wanted to record a police raid on the municipal building in Silvan which has been under a curfew for three days.

The video showed police threatening journalists in front of the Silvan Municipality after reporters from Özgür Gün TV wanted to take images from the raid. One of the policeman put his gun on Özgür Gün TV cameraman Murat Demir although he had said he shut down his camera.

Police detained Demir as well as Dicle News Agency (DİHA) reporter Sedat Yüce after seizing their cameras.