Torture on the rise in Erdogan’s Turkey
Reports of human rights atrocities in Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey are growing, with victims speaking out on forced disappearances and murder.
Erhan Dogan, a 39-year-old Kurdish schoolteacher from Turkey’s eastern province of Elazig, says he first experienced torture on the night of July 26, 2016. It began following his arrest by Turkish police in Ankara on terrorism charges.
Dogan says he was repeatedly beaten and kicked in the ribs and on the head, his hands cuffed behind him. He was suspended by a rope attached to his wrists for two hours at a time. He was blindfolded and threatened with rape as his tormentors ran their clubs over his buttocks and groin. A bucket of ice-cold water was poured over his head, then it would start all over again. When interrogators threatened to rape his wife and daughter “if you don’t give us names,” Dogan says he knew they were serious, because he had seen three young women being hauled off at the makeshift detention center and heard their anguished screams.
