A 14-year-old Kurdish child was beaten and tortured by police in Lice district of Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakir province while returning home with a friend, and his father was also threatened by the police, Mezopotamya News Agency reported.
The child, identified as Y.D., was stopped by police for no apparent reason and was kidnapped and tortured.
Y.D. was taken to a secluded area on a village road and forced to say that he was Turkish. He was then tied up and left in a swamp by the riverbank.
The child was discovered by a villager during the night and was taken to the hospital. He is at risk of losing one of his eyes due to the injuries he sustained during the torture.
Y.D. recounted the torture he endured to his family, telling them that he was taken to a remote location where four police officers beat him with gun butts. They demanded that he say that he was Turkish and insult Kurds. When he refused, they threatened him, saying that they would shoot him in the head if he did not memorize the Turkish national anthem by the next day.
Y.D.’s lawyer, Ramazan Karalp, described the child’s ordeal in more detail, saying that he was beaten and forced to recite anti-Kurdish slurs. The police officers then left him tied up and helpless in the swamp.
The police also threatened Yilmaz Dikan, the boy’s father who was attending to his son at the Dicle University Medical Faculty Hospital, saying, “You want White Toros, don’t you?” lawyer Karaalp said, and added that they will file a criminal complaint regarding this incident.
The white Toros, isa type of Renault station wagon car known to have been widely used in covert operations of state forces in 1990s to abduct and disappear Kurdish political activists.
Father Dikan said that these policies that divide people have always been in place, and if you subject children to such atrocities, they may turn against the state and become enemies.
Source: Gerçek News
