On that evening at 11:30 pm., in Taksim, one of Istanbul's central districts, Sinan was stopped by police and asked his ID Card. Police checked his records on police's database, afterwards gave back him his ID Card, and quite politely let him go. Sinan went on walking, but after 5 minutes a police car approached him and three policemen took Sinan into the car violently. In the car they consistently hit Sinan, used pepper gas on his face repeatedly. Sinan couldn't raise his head and so he couldn't see where he was taken. After almost 15 minutes, the car stopped in a place where Sinan could only see the historical 'city wall's. Here the violence went on, and two more police cars came, 10 or 11 policemen in total hit Sinan repeatedly with fists and batons, kicked, sweared him, used pepper gas on him, and threatened him ("we'll kill you") with their guns. This violence went on about one and a half hour. Then they took him again in one car and drove. While the car was moving (with a speed like 40 km/h) they threw Sinan from the car without stopping. The time was approximately 01:30 am.

Sinan stayed lying there for some time, and after he recovered a bit, went to a hospital.

Sinan's two ribs are broken, his body is full of severe bruises (his face, especially his left ear, and his back is full of baton traces). When he was thrown from the car, he fell on his back, so it's only a chance that he was not injured worse, even dead!

It seems the attack was planned, as when Sinan's ID was taken, there were surveillance cameras which can view the police car, but where he was taken by force, there were no cameras or nobody around. Also, police did not take any records, so it was not custody in its legal sense. Police kidnapped Sinan in the heart of Istanbul, tortured, and attempted to kill him!

In recent weeks, with the pretext of "security against terror" the government made changes in the police law, which henceforth extends police authority. After this change, police repression increased. Only in Taksim-Beyoglu district at least similar 22 incidents occurred in recent months – these are only the ones that Human Rights Association recorded; HRA and we are sure that there are more incidents in which the aggrieved are scared and so stayed silent.

This "perfect murder" attempt is a part of systematic attack of the police. Not only the social strugglers, many people have been attacked, beaten, tortured in similar ways.

We are not silent, it won't be that easy for the state to attack people! The campaign is going on. So far we made the attackl heard by many people, the incident was published in many newspapers and on many websites.

We see that police longs for the days in the 1990's, in which they kidnapped, "punished", and killed many people. Today we and many people, who advocate freedom and humanity, raise voice against this systematic attack and support Sinan. And as the support and solidarity rises, the state repression on us is also increasing.

We want all anarchists and anti-authoritarians know what's happening in Istanbul nowadays. Evidently, the state repression will increase, but we'll confront. And we want you to be sure that our rising struggle for freedom will prevent the state's attack on people!


In solidarity,
Ozgur Hayat [ www.ozgurhayat.org ]
&
%52 [ www.yuzde52.org ]


For contact:  ozgurhayat@ozgurhayat.org |  ofke@yuzde52.org

p.s.: You can see the photos of Sinan on these websites, and also watch the developments. Websites are in Turkish, we'll try to make declarations in English also.