Turkish youth dies in police custody as impunity soars in wake of Turkey's killer quakes
Vigilantes and members of the Turkish gendarmerie are brutalizing some survivors in the provinces struck by the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey.
Sabri Guresci was sitting inside a tent on the grounds of his family cottage in Hatay’s Altinozu district on the morning of Feb. 11 when gendarmerie officials showed up firing warning shots in the air. “They asked for Sabri then shoved him into their vehicle without explanation,” his father, Ibrahim, recalled. “Why are you taking my brother?” Sabri’s younger brother Ahmet asked, only to be hauled off to the local police station as well.
Around six hours later, Ahmet’s lifeless body was spirited out of the station. When dusk fell, Ibrahim went to the station asking what had happened to his boys. He was greeted with blank stares and told to leave. As he stood outside waiting, Ibrahim saw a body being taken out. It was wrapped in a blanket.
“I knew it was one of my sons,” Ibrahim told Al-Monitor. “I went straight to the morgue. Thanks to the intervention of friends, I was shown the body and sure enough it was my Ahmet. My other boy was worse than dead.” The pair were detained on suspicion of looting, rape and vandalism, crimes Ibrahim insists his sons did not commit.
Ahmet, 26, was allegedly beaten to death by members of the gendarmerie amid a wave of impunity that rights advocates say is gripping the 10 provinces placed under emergency rule after a pair of massive earthquakes struck southern Turkey on Feb. 6. Hatay was among the worst affected.
