VIDEO: Police brutality against a Romani wedding in Turkey
Police have intervened with brutality against a Romani wedding in Turkey. The violence was committed on 26 June in the town of Çerkezköy, 80 kilometers from Istanbul.
Hendek in northern Turkey has also seen yet another harsh intervention by police recently against Romani people. According to the center for documentation run by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, “Police violence has become a part of daily life in Turkey.”
In addition to Romani people, police target public demonstrations by environmentalists, feminists, Kurds and the LGBTIQ+ community, regularly assaulting them with disproportionate force. According to the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), which has drawn attention to the incident at the Romani wedding, police alleged the celebrations had exceeded the time allotted for them, cautioned the wedding guests to leave in abusive terms and then beat them with batons.
Several injured persons had to be treated in hospital as a result of the brutality. Officers prevented bystanders from filming their intervention on their smartphones and harshly intervened against those who attempted to film.
Despite that effort, more than one video has been posted online of the brutal intervention. The Roman Haber media organization posted it to their Facebook profile.
VIDEO
The other incident happened in Hendek, northern Turkey, near the town of Sakarya, where both police officers and security guards beat up a large group of Romani people including Ferdi Sepetçioğlu, the chair of the Hendek Roma Association. In the footage of that incident, which was also posted to Facebook by Roman Haber, Romani people can be seen fleeing uniformed police officers who are thrashing them with their truncheons.
In addition to the documentation center of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, which has stated that “Police violence has become a part of daily life in Turkey,” Human Rights Watch is also drawing attention to all of the armed forces using disproportionate force in Turkey. That international organization has published a report accusing gendarmes, police officers and soldiers in Turkey of torture and of illegally detaining crime suspects in the area affected by the recent earthquake.
“Law enforcement officials are treating the state of emergency for the natural disaster as a license to torture, otherwise ill-treat and even kill with impunity,” Human Rights Watch reports. The ERRC reports that what is less apparent and most overlooked is the violence committed against Roma in Turkey.
For example, in May 2023, a Romani father of three, Semih Gürler (age 33) was shot dead by a police officer when he was standing on the balcony of a house in Izmir’s Konak neighborhood. Recently other Romani victims of racially motivated torture and violence who filed complaints against four police officers were also charged and tried themselves.
These last two cases are part of a wider pattern of the disproportionate use of force and routine intimidation by criminal justice authorities against Romani people. The ERRC and the Romani Godi organization are supporting the victims and will continue to investigate the circumstances of these incidents to decide on the most appropriate action to take on their behalf.
