One disabled minor detained during police operations
DİYARBAKIR (DİHA) - During police raids yesterday in Diyarbakır, police arrested a teenage boy with a mental age of five.
Operations began at dawn in 16 provinces of Turkey, including 26 separate districts of Istanbul. The Prime Minister's office claimed 251 arrests in the so-called operation to arrest "YDG-H, DHKP-C and ISIS members." In Diyarbakır, there were house raids across the city beginning Thursday night. According to the provincial governor, 17 were arrested.
Mehmet Ali Çetinkaya lives in Diyarbakır's neighborhood of Şehitlik. At 1 a.m. on Thursday night, police raided his house and arrested his 17-year-old mentally disabled son. His son has a medical report demonstrating his mental age of five.
"They beat me, my wife and my son. They tore up our house and broke everything," said Çetinkaya. He noted that it was a crime for the police to raid their house without a warrant and to beat him and his family. "The more we talked, the more they beat us." Çetinkaya himself has a heart condition. He had a heart attack as a result of the police violence; when he woke up, he was in the hospital and his son was under arrest. His son was taken to the police station for children, where he was made to give testimony.
Raci Bilici of the Human Rights Association in Diyarbakır said that Çetinkaya was one of only two families to complain about rights violations. It is likely that there were similar violations, as Çetinkaya said many of his neighbors were raided in the same way.
(cm/nt)
