SHOCKING details of rape, waterboarding and electrocution by Turkish police in Halfeti have been heard in courtrooms as detainees were denied requests to be referred to forensics for examination.
After her release late on Thursday, Ruken Deniz told the Mesopotamia News Agency a harrowing account of her rape and sexual abuse while in police custody.
“They electrocuted me in the police station,” she said.
“They smashed my head on the ground. I can’t feel my hands and feet. My ribs hurt. I was tortured for several days. I was raped and sexually assaulted.”
When asked why she did not report this while in custody she explained that she was terrified and feared being sent to prison.
Ms Deniz was one of nine people released under judicial control after being detained in a series of raids in Urfa province earlier this week.
The police operation followed clashes last Saturday in which two alleged members of the Kurdistan Workers Party-affiliated People’s Defence Units (HPG) were killed along with a special operations officer.
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) official Abdullah Ciftci was arrested and jailed for social media shares.
Lawyers told the judge that their clients did not receive a detailed medical examination by doctors and had not been given a medical report.
A request to be referred to the forensic medical institution was denied by the judge.
Further arrests were made yesterday as the courts heard cases in batches of 10 to deal with the high volume of prisoners.
Mehmet Hayari Ciftci and Mustafa Ciftci described the torture they were subjected to at the hands of police.
Mehmet Ciftci said: “I was tortured at the gendarmerie station. They stamped on me, I still have torture marks on me. They clubbed me and they beat me on the soles of my feet and hands. They waterboarded me.
“These things happened to me at the gendarmerie station. They electrocuted me in the genitals while I was blindfolded in the police station. They stamped on me again. I will make a criminal complaint. I reject the judicial control order!”
The court noted that Mr Ciftci has a red mark of about 10 cms on his right shoulder.
In Britain the government has been urged to review relations with Turkey following the “horrific” torture allegations.
Labour MP Chris Williamson said Turkey should be labelled a “pariah state” over its continued human rights abuses as he tabled an EDM critical of authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
