'I was subjected to strip search in police custody'

* This photo of writer Meral Şimşek, showing her during her own autograph session, was also added as criminal evidence to her file

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdîsh

"They portrayed the prizes granted to me as criminal elements. They turned the award given by the English PEN to 12 writers into a criminal element. They alleged that I used the code names of organization militants in my stories and poems. That is not true.

"From the questions I was asked during the interrogation in detention, I understood that I had been wiretapped and closely followed for 17 months. That was not necessary; I announce the events that I attend on social media. They are all permitted. For instance, I attended the Batman Kurdish Literature Days. These are all legal, permitted events."

Writer Meral Şimşek says that she was detained by the police from her house in Malatya province in eastern Turkey on December 9, 2020 and subjected to strip search at Malatya Security Directorate.

Her statement has come amid ongoing debates on "strip search" in Turkey. Because around the time when Şimşek says she was strip searched, namely in December 2020, Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Kocaeli MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu announced that 30 female university students were subjected to strip search at Uşak Security Directorate in the Aegean.

Afterwords, several people, both men and women, have shared their experiences of strip search torture in detention and prisons.

Zengin did not accept it at first

Commenting on the issue at the time, Özlem Zengin, the Parliamentary Group Deputy Chair and Tokat MP of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), stated that the allegations of strip search did not reflect the truth. Speaking to Dilek Gül from Euronews Turkish, she argued that HDP's Gergerlioğlu was "terrorizing the Parliament."

While Zengin was denying the existence of "strip search" in Turkey, several students who were taken into custody for protesting Prof. Melih Bulu, the appointed rector of Boğaziçi University, also announced that they were subjected to strip search in police custody.

Several people made similar statements; however, the state officials kept on denying the existence of strip search.

However, most recently, AKP's Özlem Zengin has made such a statement that the debate is now not only about "whether there is strip search or not" but also about "why people declare it after 20 years."

In response to HDP's Gergerioğlu, Zengin has referred to the FETÖ, the organization held accountable for the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016:

"All female members of the FETÖ behind bars have become advocates of the headscarf. Those who used to reject it are now defending it. I am not a person to subject herself to the FETÖ members, I am the AK Party Group Deputy Chair. Everyone must know their place...

"Nothing of that sort happened in the place that you mentioned (Uşak). It was proven with images. The Vice Minister went there and declared it.

"When you strip search a woman, she expresses her disturbance at that very instance, she does not wait for it for a year.

"An honorable, moral woman does not wait for a year."

Şimşek waited to be indicted

Zengin's remarks sparked harsh criticisms on social media. Around the time when she made another statement and said, "This search has been around perhaps for 60 years; it is Europe, the US and Israel; it is not different from the searches carried out at airports," writer Meral Şimşek called bianet and said that she had been subjected to torture of strip search.

In explaining her reasons for declaring it two months later, maybe not after 20 years, Şimşek said, "I waited for my indictment to be issued."

'I said, "I had my uterus removed", but...'

Sharing details about what she went through, writer Şimşek says that she was made to stand on cardboards, forced to stop and go and subjected to strip search in this manner at Malatya Security Directorate.

"Even though I told them that I had a surgical operation on my uterus, they also did a vaginal search," adds Şimşek.

'They did not give water, either'

According to writer Şimşek, in addition to this strip torture, she was also not given water for eight hours in detention:

"They detained me on charge of organization membership. I wanted some water for hours at the security directorate, but they did not give me any. They gave me water two hours after my attorney came.

"During the interrogation, they constantly asked questions about the literary discussions that I had attended and the prizes that I had received."

'They even took my books'

What enrages Şimşek the most is that they seized even the books that she wrote herself. Şimşek says:

"They took the books that I wrote, they took the electronic devices, they took everything. They said that some of the books on my bookshelves were banned. I did not know it. They took them as well.

"They also portrayed the prizes granted to me as criminal elements. They turned the prize given by a publishing house supported by the English PEN into a criminal element. They argued that I used the code names of the organization's militants in my stories and poems. That is not true."

Şimşek also says that when she was asked questions during the interrogation, she understood that she had been wiretapped and closely followed for 17 months. "That was not necessary, I already announce the events that I attend on social media. They are all permitted," she adds.

'An operation of revenge'

Detained for a day, Şimşek was then released on probation. She defines what she went through as an "operation of revenge."

"Around a year ago, I filed a criminal complaint against the Malatya Security Directorate on the grounds that they had abducted me," says Şimşek and adds: "While I was waiting for this trial to start, I was detained in such a manner. I do not accept what happened. I am a literary figure, I am a writer. I am a Kurdish writer; I naturally say, 'I wish I knew Kurdish.' They brought this against me as a crime. I do not accept these charges."

Shortly after Şimşek was detained, the Malatya Chief Public Prosecutor's Office indicted her and a lawsuit was filed against the writer on charges of "organization membership" and "terror propaganda."

Her first hearing will be held on March 9, 2021.

"I hope that the charges will be dropped at the first hearing because I am a literary figure, a Kurdish literary figure," she concludes her remarks.

(EMK/SD)