Mustafa Akdoğan tells that when he asked the police officers to show their identities they yelled at him saying how he could ask them their identities, telling him if he could not see they were in their uniforms and beat him up at the Avcılar neighborhood of Istanbul.
This incident took place after Celalettin Cerrah, Istanbul Police Chief, told that the citizens hould ask the police officers for their identities. According to “ATV” TV channel, Akdoğan will not ask the police officers for their identities and he will try not to see any police officer again, if possible. According to newspaper “Radikal”, there are fractures in his skull and nose, and his chin is broken.
“There is no separate category as “police officers in plain clothes”
What had Cerrah say? Our citizens should ask everyone whether in official uniform or plain clothes who introduce themselves as police officers for their identities.
In the copy of “Radikal” published on December 7, Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin says, “Police officers should show their identities when asked. We have regulations about this. When asked, the police officers should think that they should show their identities and the citizens should believe that it is their right to ask for their identities.” Önder Aytaç, a member of the Police Academy said in a TV program titled “32nd Day” that the police officers in plain clothes must show their identities.
What these explanations share in common is that the police officers wearing their official uniforms should show their identities, but they are all deceiving us.
Because the law regarding this matter is clear: It does not differentiate between the police officers who wear uniforms and who wear plain clothes: “When performing his or her duty, the police officer can ask for another person’s identity only after showing his/hers first and then the police officers should tell the person that is stopped the reason for stopping him/her.”
In other words,
1. The police officer must show his/her identity regardless of what he/she is wearing.
2. The police officer must show his/her identity first.
3. The police officer should explain the citizen why he/she was stopped.
It is not possible that those who made these explanations do not know the law. On the contrary, it is certain that they know it better than all of us. The correct explanation should be to point out to these three points and tell the police officers to show their identities, to explain the citizens why they were stopped and to quit beating up people.
Where is the Prime Minister, the Minister of Interior?
Two people have been keeping quiet while the media has been discussing this topic: Prime Minister Erdoğan and Minister of Interior Atalay. They should appear before the public without losing any time and remind the police officers that they should show their identities.
They should also remind them about the official reports
According to the law, the police officers should give the person whose identity they are asking to see an official report of what happened.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says in its report about the police violence published this week that this official report should be given without waiting for the individual in question to ask for one.
The correct explanation came from Üskül
Zafer Üskül, president of the Parliamentary Commission for the Human Rights, said, “It would be more appropriate to tell the police officers to show their identities rather than telling the citizens to ask the police officers for their identities For the law demands that the police officers show their identities before asking for someone else’s.”
The explanation from the Istanbul Police Department: He hit his head on the windshield
The Istanbul Police Department said regarding the incident in question that the police officers showed their identities to Akdoğan, but he ran away after swinging punches at them and later hit his head a few times on the windshield and the body of the car; after all this, he was taken in, with the order of the prosecutor, for resisting, insulting and threatening the police officers and damaging the public property.
So instead of investigating if Akdoğan was tortured, the prosecutor puts in action the suspicious police complaint.
The two implementation the HRW report demanded needed to be fixed were the statements made by the police officers to protect officers charged with rights violations and the counter suits filed by the accused police officers against the victims.
About the suggestion that an independent complaints unit needs to be established immediately, Justice Minister says that they do not have such a plan, but he respects the idea.
In other words, although they have a solution in their hands, they would rather brush aside the suggestions and continue protecting the police officers who use violence. (TK/TB)
