Video activist Oktay İnce gets back his archive seized in a police raid

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Oktay İnce is a video activist and documentary filmmaker who films the struggles for rights at the squares and on the streets of Turkey, trying to make them visible, while the mainstream media turns a blind eye.

In 2018, as part of an investigation over his social media posts, the police raided his house and seized his archive. As of yesterday (December 8), Oktay İnce got back his archive after three years of struggle.

During the raid on his house on October 16, 2018, the police seized not only his 20-year archive and phones, but also the digital materials of his spouse psychologist Sevgi Türkmen and their children.

While the police should have taken a copy of them, they seized the digital materials of Oktay İnce, Sevgi Türkmen and the children.

After this, İnce started struggling to take back his archive, which has finally borne fruit: He has got back a total of 38 digital materials (mostly harddisks, DVDs, flash drives) from the İzmir Kemalpaşa Courthouse.

'They would be destroyed without my struggle'

Speaking to bianet, İnce says that the process of sending the archive from the capital city of Ankara to İzmir was also problematic.

Noting that the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office sent a written correspondence to the Forensic Safe in July, İnce says:

Even if we pressured them, the Forensic Safe did not give us the archive. The Forensic Safe did nothing for what I had waged a struggle for for 3 years. They shrugged me off. And I announced on the Internet that I would stage a protest in front of the Courthouse on December 2. Because police follow things like that. Three days before my protest, they called my lawyer and said that they sent it to the Kemalpaşa Courthouse. So, my decision to protest speeded things up. And yesterday, I went to the Kemalpaşa Courthouse and took everything back.

Stressing that the police have started to unlawfully seize everything during house searches since the coup attempt in 2016, İnce has said:

"My goal was to draw attention to this. Also, our archive is the archive of social struggle. It is at least an Ankara-based archive of social struggles. If I had not struggled for it, it would have been destroyed. We have put an end to this, again with a decision to protest. I am relieved now."

Oktay İnce has noted that he has examined the returned digital archive and confirmed that there is no missing data. He has indicated that all digital materials have been returned to him with two copies.

What happened?

Oktay İnce is a video activist and documentary filmmaker. He usually films protest demonstrations and struggles for rights. He produces works for the "Seyri Sokak" social media account and the "Video and Documentary Collective" (Video ve Belgesel Kolektifi).

On October 16, 2018, the police raided İnce's house as part of an investigation over his social media messages. İnce was detained to be released on the same day. However, his archive was seized. After this, he started waging a struggle to get back his seized archive.

Another person whose digital materials were seized during the raid was psychologist Sevgi Türkmen, İnce's spouse. Türkmen's own works and images of her 4-year-old child were among these materials.

In response to this, İnce protested in İzmir and Ankara several times. As he put it, he wanted to get back his archive and make himself heard "as he had exhausted the legal remedies." He was detained during his protests. He also staged a "handcuffing" protest in front of the Directorate General of Cinema, which is affiliated to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

In the meantime, a lawsuit was filed against him on charge of "insulting the President" as per the Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). On November 30, 2021, he was sentenced to 1 year, 2 months, 17 days in prison on the offense charged. (HA/SD)