Parliament Authorizes Neighborhood Guards to Detain Suspects, Carry Firearms

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The parliament has passed two contentious articles of the Law Proposal on Downtown and Neighborhood Guards, allowing guards to carry weapons and detain suspects.

While the opposition parties objected to guards' authorization of carrying weapons, deputies of the ruling party said they have been already permitted to do so, referring to Article 5 of Law No. 722, a law enacted in 1966 and gives guards the same authority as the police in terms of carrying and using firearms.

According to the articles passed yesterday (June 9), guards will round up people with an arrest warrant when they see them and deliver them to the general law enforcement agencies they are affiliated with.

So far, nine articles of the proposal have been approved by the parliament.

Accordingly, the downtown and neighborhood guards are responsible for and authorized to take measures to catch suspects, to prevent them from harming themselves or others after being caught during or after a crime is committed, to take measures to protect crime evidence, to find the identity and address of witnesses and report them to the general law enforcement agencies.

The negotiations of the proposal will continue today.

Opposition: Why are auxiliary forces needed?

"If this is a need, how have Turkey's security problems grown so much? If it's not, why is an organization of guards that is authorized and armed like the police is being founded?" said Lütfü Türkkan, the İYİ (Good) Party group's deputy chair.

Sarıhan Oluç, the Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) deputy group chair, remarked, "The need for auxiliary forces also indicates the purposes of the security forces affiliated with the Ministry of Interior other than their legally defined duties. Of course, these aims will be realized through the political agenda of the government."

"With the institutionalization and concentration of the guardianship system, it is aimed to increase the pressure on society, to create the means of the survival of the ruling power, to corrode the state of the law in Turkey even more, to prepare the groundwork to suppress social demands with violence," he added.

HDP MP Mahmut Toğrul asked, "What is the purpose of establishing an alternative, or rather parallel, law enforcement regime?" (AS/VK)