Police Threaten Journalist: ‘Be Careful, You May be Cut in a Nook’

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Journalist İrem Afşin has said that the police officers who were doing criminal record check at metro exit told her that her outfit was “inconvenicent” and then threatened her: “Be careful, you may be cut in a nook”.

Afşin explained what happened on Twitter:

“Just now: Police were doing criminal record check at Refik Saydam exit of Şişhane metro. He clinged to my arm and said, ‘Ms. your outfit is inconvenient’. I had black tunic and keffiyeh on me. During the check I asked, ‘What’s inconvenient with it?’, and he said ‘That fabric is forbidden’.

“As you know, we are under the State of Emergency, it is not possible to ask questions. ‘There is no inscription in law that it’s illegal, you are here for security, you are supposed to know this’, I said. He immediately raised his voice shouting at me ‘You...Are you a lawyer or what?’. I said, ‘No, I am a journalist’. He replied, ‘Ah, now it makes sense’.

“Before I could ask ‘what makes sense?’, the criminal record check was over and thanks to god that it’s still all clean. I took a few steps and he shouted from my behing: ‘Be careful, you may be cut in a nook!’ Does State of Emergency exist for people to threaten citizens in the middle of the street because they didn’t like the outfit?” (ÇT/TK)