HDP’s Hatimoğulları: Introducing themselves as police, two armed people forced my door

* Photo: HDP Press

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Vice Co-Chair and Adana MP Tülay Hatimoğulları has said that two armed civilians who introduced themselves as police officers forced the door of her house in the capital city of Ankara on September 25, raising concerns that the prosecutor's office did not want to receive her complaint and the Security Directorate, which she appealed to about the incident, have not made any statement for five days.

Hatimoğulları shared the incident with the public by holding a press statement at the HDP Central Office in Ankara today (September 28).

Sharing details about the incident, she said, "Introducing themselves as 'plainclothes police officers', two people forced my doorbell and tried to break into the house. I did not open the door. They insistently kept on saying, 'We are plainclothes police officers', forcing the door and ringing the doorbell. I said, 'I am an MP; neither a police officer nor anybody else can enter my house like that.' They insistently kept saying, 'We are police officers.' It continued like that for a few more minutes. I contacted my friends from the party in the meantime. We informed the Security."

What happened at prosecutor's office, security?

Hatimoğulları underlined that it was not an isolated incident. "We made the necessary applications to the security directorate and the prosecutor's office. We made an application to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT)," she said and shared the following information:

"Yesterday, my lawyer went to the prosecutor's office, seeing about seven-eight prosecutors to file a criminal complaint. The prosecutors resisted receiving the petition. The prosecutor on duty said, 'I am not the prosecutor on duty' and tried not to receive the petition. The prosecutor had to receive the petition after my lawyer brought the prosecutors' timetable.

"At the talks in the security directorate, we said that it should be notified if that was an official visit. The security said, 'Yes, there is something suspicious about it.' They have not yet given information about what the suspicious incident was. We demanded that the camera footage be watched before spoliation of evidence but there is no official statement about it.

"It has been five days since the incident happened, the door of an MP was forced by two armed people, but no satisfying statement has been made about it even though we made our complaints, which is concerning."

'Is there no one to investigate it?'

Ümit Dede, the HDP Vice Co-Chair Responsible for the Law and Human Rights Commission, also spoke about the incident.

"As you also follow, this is not an isolated incident. It is not something that has happened for the first time to our MP. After the July 15 coup attempt, they are trying to normalize kidnappings, threats, blackmails and disappearances," Ümit Dede said and referred to some previous incidents:

"Only in a year, our Central Executive Board member Serhat Aktemur was kidnapped in daylight in Diyarbakır, he was battered and threatened in an isolated place and then released.

"Our Party Assembly member Celalettin Yalçın was kidnapped in the middle of İstanbul, taken to an isolated place, severely battered, his phone and money was seized, he was left stark naked by the highway.

"Our Sincan District Co-Chair Fatma Kılıçarslan faced an attempted kidnapping in Ankara Ostim in daylight. Even though sensitive citizens intervened, the people who alleged that they were police officers tried to kidnap Kılıçarslan. They released her after threatening her."

Reiterating that what Tülay Hatimoğulları was faced with was not the first incident of its kind, Dede underlined that "there was something important about it in the sense that they showed how reckless and fearless they were by coming to the house of an MP in Ankara under arms."

"If they come to the house of an MP in the capital city and if her door is forced under arms, then, it means that no citizen has legal safety or safety of life in this country," Ümit Dede protested further.

Impunity

He asked, "Is there no one to investigate these people," adding: "If so, either the law enforcement and  judicial organization, including the ministries of justice and interior, are so afraid of the power behind this structure that they cannot investigate it or a different organization has been undertaken by the Interior Minister himself within the knowledge of the police."

Reiterating that neither HDP MP Tülay Hatimoğulları nor her lawyer has been informed following the incident, HDP's Ümit Dede underlined that "there is a situation of impunity and lack of investigation" and expressed the HDP's determination to follow up the incident so that the responsible parties will be penalized. (DŞ/SD)