ALL MAINSTREAM Turkish Cypriot opposition parties yesterday backed calls for an enquiry into police violence against demonstrators Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week described as “marginal and collaborators.”
Several protesters were injured as police indiscriminately beat them during a demonstration held against Erdogan’s visit to mark the Turkish invasion and subsequent division of the island. Erdogan later described the demonstrators as “marginal collaborators who should not be heeded”.
Calls for an urgent enquiry had already come from the so-called marginal groups, such as the New Cyprus Party (YKP) and the United Cyprus Party (BKP). However, yesterday the main opposition Republican Turkish Party (CTP), along with the smaller Communal Democracy Party (TDP) and Serdar Denktash’s Democrat Party (DP) joined the calls.
“There must be an enquiry that will lead to those responsible for the violence being removed from their positions,” head of the main opposition Republican Turkish Party (CTP) Ozkan Yorgancioglu said at a protest held yesterday morning outside the “prime minister’s office” in the north. He accused the ruling National Unity Party (UBP) of “using the police to look cute to others”.
Feelings have been running high in the north after shocking photographs and video footage of the police beating demonstrators appeared on social networking sites such as Facebook. Some TV channels in the north have also shown excerpts of the violence, which clearly shows police officers punching and kicking indiscriminately at protesters, who appear to have done nothing more than raise a banner criticising Erdogan.
Relations between the Turkish Cypriot community and Erdogan have been strained since Ankara began implementation of an economic austerity package at the beginning of the year aimed at cutting public sector employment. They worsened after Erdogan described the community as “parasites” and led to mass demonstrations calling for Ankara to get its “hands off Turkish Cypriots.”
TDP leader Mehmet Cakici, also at yesterday’s demonstration at the “prime minister’s office,” went further than simply calling for the removal of police officers who had dished out the violence by saying an enquiry should also look into the “relationship between the violence and Erdogan’s visit.”
“We should be looking at how this regime is developing,” he said, adding that the target of the investigation into police violence “should go beyond the police headquarters and the ‘prime minister’s office.’ It should look at the role of the Security Forces Command.” Cakici has long campaigned for the police in the north, who remain under the control of the Turkish military command, to be handed over to civilian control.
Strong words also came from a representative speaking for DP leader Serdar Denktash, who echoed Cakici’s call for the police in the north to become a civilian body. The party representative added particular concern about the way female demonstrators were treated by male police.
As well as political action, some of the demonstrators involved in last Wednesday’s violence are filing their own cases against the police and the Turkish Cypriot authorities. Onel Polili, a lawyer representing a number of the cases, told the Cyprus Mail his clients, some of whom are female, were physically beaten and hospitalised by the police.
Polili said he was also preparing to prosecute individual police officers where identity could be proven. “We have many sources of video and photographic sources which we are still looking at.”
