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Three people have been arrested in connection with the attack on the funeral ceremony of Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) arrested Deputy Co-Chair Aysel Tuğluk's mother Aysel Tuğluk.
Murat Alp, whose photograph taken with Minister of Interior Soylu while he was in detention, was shared on social media, is among the arrestees.
Following the racist attack on Tuğluk's funeral, an investigation was launched by Gölbaşı Public Chief Prosecutor's Office. 19 people were released after testifying, and seven others remained in detention as a part of the investigation.
C. Ö, B.Ş. and Murat Alp who were among the detainees, were arrested by the court and the other four people were released on probation.
The examination of the footage of moments of the attack show the three people provoking the group by insulting the funeral and the acquaintances of the deceases.
C. Ö, B.Ş. and Murat Alp were arrested on the charges of "prevention of exercising the freedom of belief, thought and opinion" and "opposing to the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations".
Photograph of arrestee with Interior Minister Soylu
In the following days, it came out that Murat Alp had shared a photograph on the social media, which he had taken with Minister of Interior Soylu while he was in detention.
Photographs of Murat Alp taken with the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son Bilal Erdoğan, Minister of Labor and Social Security Jülide Sarıeroğlu and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Ankara MP Ahmet Gündoğdu appeared on the social media as well.
Minister Soylu: "Will I resign just because of one photograph?"
Minister Soylu, making a statement on the photograph had said:
"We watched the footage of the incident together with the board for one hour. After spending 3.5 hours in the police station, we gave the necessary orders regarding the detentions and left the police station. In the meanwhile, the people in the neighbourhood who heard that we were there, came to take some photographs with us and we had photographs taken with several people as we left".
Upon criticism that he did not resign from position, Soylu said:
"Am I going to resign just because of one photograp?...Do I become an immoral person just because of one photograph [...]?
What happened?
An attack was carried out on the funeral ceremony of Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Co-Chair Aysel Tuğluk's mother Hatun Tuğluk.
Hatun Tuğluk had passed away yesterday (September 13) in Ankara at the age of 78.
HDP Deputy Co-Chair Aysel Tuğluk who had been in detention on remand for 9 months in Kandıra Prison, had also participated in the funeral ceremony with a permit.
During the funeral ceremony, a group started to assault the people who attended the ceremony verbally.
The members of the attacker group were reportedly shouting: "Bodies of martrys are lie here. We won't allow any terrorist be buried here. This is no Armenian cemetery. We won't let Kurds, Alewis, Armenians be buried here. If you do so, we will take them out and tear them apart".
HDP Ağrı MP Dilan Dirayet Taşdemir explaining the attack to bianet said that body was exhumed out of the grave upon threats and noted that the police showed the attackers the empty grave afterwards.
Explaining what happened following the attack, Taşdemir said:
"A riot police unit of 30 arrived at the scene later. But the riot police did not intervene in the incident. [...] On the contrary, they told [us] 'Be silent, don't answer back, don't let them be provoked". They were only a few people, so the police could have taken them if they wanted to and release them when the funeral was over". (BE/HK/DG)
