Police forces journalist to pose with Turkish flag

2022-10-26 16:21:22


	 

	ANKARA - Diren Yurtsever told her lawyers about the impositions she was subjected to by the Turkish police since the moment she was arrested, including ‘posing with a Turkish flag’.

	Lawyers on Wednesday afternoon were finally able to visit the 11 journalists who have been in police custody in Ankara since Tuesday after the restriction on lawyers’ visit was expired.

	"Books, magazines and Yeni Yaşam Newspaper were seized as evidence from my home during the raid,” Diren Yurtsever, one of the arrested journalists and editor-in-chief of Mesopotamia Agency, told her lawyers.

	SEXIST INSULTS

	“When I was taken out of my house, a police officer told one of the shopkeepers, who runs a shop next to my house, "Terrorists live here". They targeted me like this,” Yurtsever said on the moments of her arrest.

	Yurtsever also noted that the police officers accompanying her in the police vehicle on the way to the Istanbul Police Heqdquarters threatened her with sexist insults during the whole journey.

	‘YOU WILL SEE WHAT TORTURE IS’

	Yurtsever was subjected to another scandalous treatment during the medical controls at a state hospital in Ankara.

	“This is an educated terrorist,” police officers told the health workers, Yurtsever said.

	“I reported to the doctor that I was subjected to psychological torture,” she added.

	But then, one of the police officers standing next to her told her,”If the physical torture begins now, you will see what torture is”.

	IMPOSITION OF PHOTO WITH TURKISH FLAG

	The mistreatment of Yurtsever continued in the Istanbul Police Headquarters as the police officers forced her to pose with a “Turkish flag”.

	“They wanted to take my picture handcuffed in front of a Turkish flag. When I did not accept this imposition, they tried to force me to do so saying that this was the normal procedure,” Yurtsever said.

	“But I know there is no such procedure, so they had to take my picture in front of a wall without the flag.”