Reputation of police

Being broke was nothing extraordinary for us students at those times, though I was much better off compared to many of my friends because I had a part time job with the Turkish Daily News and was getting a salary. My courses were in the morning hours and most of the time I walked from the Sıhhiye building of the Faculty of Letters to the then headquarters of the TDN on Tunus Avenue every noon.

That day there was a demonstration of students in front of the Interior Ministry and the police were applying all methods of persuasion (!) to disperse the students. I was not among the demonstrators. Indeed, I was walking on the other side of the boulevard. I was in front of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, or TOBB, when I first noticed that some policemen were approaching me.

For more than 500 meters I managed to walk faster than them, but just at the corner of the Is Bank I all of a sudden felt a strong pain in the back of my right knee. I collapsed and fell on the pavement; the books under my arm were spread all around. For about half an hour the four policemen, who had chased me up to that point, entertained themselves by ruthlessly landing their truncheons into almost every section of my body.

When they were tired with beating me, they left and instead of going to the newspaper I took a taxi home. Apparently I fainted in the bathroomÉ Then I woke up in hospital. Thank God that I was sharing flat with some friends and they were kind enough to take me to a hospital. I have never forgotten the trauma I lived and have never forgiven the police for what they did to me... And, of course I was no exception...

Since then, because of my profession I have made many "friends" among senior police officers, but still I prefer to stay away from the police as much as possible... I have written a lot about the problems of police officers; the need to increase their living standards; and of course the need to provide better education facilities to police and of giving importance to the education of police officers.

Police crimes
However, despite all efforts, as demonstrated in the murder of some 48 people over the past two years by police bullets or "persuasion" tactics - that is sheer torture Ğ during interrogation as well as from the video footage of police dispersing demonstrators, we have to concede that this country still has a very serious problem regarding the police and the right of police officers to shoot and kill people.

Last week, almost all news bulletins showed footage from a security camera of a Istanbul night club. A group of men wearing police jackets were pulling out in a ruthless manner a girl from the nightclub. The girl was later allegedly repeatedly raped by the group. They were not policemen; they were just wearing police jackets.

Istanbul Chief of Police Celalettin Cerrah, unable to understand why no one from the crowd in the restaurant - apparently there were some real police there as well Ğ objected to the fake policemen pulling the girl out by her hair or called the police emergency number and reported the incident, asked, "Why did not anyone ask those fake policemen to show their identities?"

Since then, on many TV stations debate programs have been held about why Turks are scared of police and why they cannot ask policemen to show their identities.

Wishes and realities are two different things. In Turkey it is unfortunate but we do not have police who would voluntarily agree to show their police ID cards. Our police behave as if they are from a superior creed and love to be bossy in their dealings with us ordinary people. Even police cannot dare to ask other police to show his or her ID. Example? It was in daily Vatan on Friday.

Three police probing an incident at Istanbul’s Bahçelievler district reportedly asked a civilian on the scene, who claimed to be a policeman as well, to show them his ID. That civilian policeman was apparently a senior police officer. He not only refused to show his ID, but the three policemen who demanded to see his ID have now been laid off from active duty...

Can you ask a policeman to show his ID? Can you dare? Can such police have a good reputation in the society?

NOTE: I wish all our readers a happy Sacrifice Holiday...