15/11/2023 | Writer: Yıldız Tar
The court heard KaosGL.org reporter Aslı Alpar and journalist Emel Vural as witnesses in the Ankara Pride March case.
The fourth hearing of the lawsuit brought against 42 people, who were detained by using violence last year during the 2nd Ankara Pride March was held today (November 15) at the 52nd Penal Court of First Instance.
Kaos GL Association, Human Rights Association Ankara Branch, May 17 Association, Pink Life LGBTI+ Solidarity Association, UniKuir and İstanbul Bar Association Human Rights Center followed the hearing, which was held in the great hearing room in the court.
The defendants testified, KaosGL.org reporter Aslı Alpar and journalist Emel Vural were heard as witnesses, and the defense lawyers made defense statements. The journalist witnesses stated that the police violence throughout the day was directed against the demonstrators as well as against them. The defense lawyers stated that organising a Pride march is a constitutional right, that the police attacked LGBTI+ people on the day of the march while protecting the groups that gathered to attack LGBTI+ people, and called for the acquittal of the defendants.
The case was postponed, next trial is going to be heard on January 31th, at 14.00 pm, in 2024.
KaosGL.org reporter was heard as a witness
The trial began with the statements of the defendants who have not yet testified. The defendants stated that they had been beaten and detained while they were exercising their constitutional rights, and demanded acquittal. Lawyer İlayda Doğa Karaman requested to hear the witnesses and watch the footage of the incident in the courtroom after the defendants' statements. The judge accepted the request to hear the witnesses and rejected the request to watch the video footage of the incident in the courtroom.
The first witness to describe what happened on the day of the march was KaosGL.org reporter Aslı Alpar. Stating that she was wounded in the leg during the police attack, despite being a journalist and following the news, Alpar summarized what she witnessed during the Pride March as follows:
“I am a journalist. I was in Kuğulu Park on July 5, 2022 around 16.00. I went there early to make observation. There were no activists, there were about two hundred policemen. The police were very harshly removing the parents who let their children play in the park. At the same time in Kuğulu Park, I saw some people in civilian clothes, they were often in contact with the police. And later I saw them insulting LGBTI+ people. At that time, I saw that the police had removed a person from the area even before the protest started, assuming that they were LGBTI+ because of the clothes they were wearing.”
“Ten stitches in my leg”
"About an hour later I heard a noise, I went to Tunalı Street in the direction of the noise. I saw people in civilian clothes attacking young LGBTI+ people again, shouting ‘I don't want faggots in my country’. I saw the first police intervention on Büklüm Street. Fifty police surrounded a group of ten people and sprayed them with pepper spray. As the press, we started walking towards Kennedy Street. I witnessed torture in a clear sense. The police surrounded a group of twenty people and did not allow us to take photographs. They kept pushing us. Even though we showed our press cards, they tried to push us away from the area. Meanwhile, there was heavy traffic on Kennedy Street. I and another reporter friend were hit by a car because they were pushing us into the traffic. The people who remained in the police ring wanted to leave the ring and disperse, but the police insulted them and prevented them from leaving the area. When the police used pepper spray, I stepped back a little and a passer-by said, 'Your leg is bleeding'. I hurt my leg when they pushed me. When I went to the hospital that evening, I had ten stitches in the wound.”
Policeman to protester: “I like to get you on the ground like this”
“When I advanced on the area again, I saw that a group in civilian clothes was trying to attack LGBTI+ people by swearing and insulting them, and there were no law enforcement officers trying to stop them. As journalists, we were subjected to pushing back once again. We saw the police handcuffing people behind their backs and getting them on the ground. On the one hand, they were pressing on people’s backs and necks with their knees and feet. I heard one policeman saying: ‘I like to get you on the ground like this.’ I also saw another journalist friend of mine, Emel Vural, being sprayed in the face with pepper spray and lying on the ground unable to breathe. We called for an ambulance, but the ambulance did not come. Her friends took her to hospital on their own. When the bleeding increased in my leg, I left the area to go to the hospital.”
“I saw people being thrown into the traffic”
Journalist Emel Vural was also a witness. Vural said: "People who wanted to come together to exercise their constitutional rights were faced with police intervention before they were able to gather. Stating that the demonstration could not take place because of the police intervention, Vural reported what she witnessed throughout the day:
“I saw people being thrown into moving traffic. I saw the police attacking people because of their clothes. We were prevented from taking footage. I insisted on filming. It was my professional duty to capture these moments. Humanly speaking, the scene we saw was very terrible. I saw young people being sprayed in the face with pepper spray and being dragged to the ground in handcuffs. When I tried to film, I was also sprayed in the face with pepper spray. I had difficulty breathing for about an hour and was taken to hospital. That is probably why I am standing before you now as a witness and not as a defendant. If had I not been hospitalized, I would have also been detained. My journalist friend Aslı Alpar helped me get to the hospital. I wasn’t aware that Aslı was also injured. It was really awful. The summary of the day is not that journalists were subjected to violence, but that there was torture and we were subjected to violence because we wanted to record it.”
“While anti-LGBTI+ groups were gathering in Hacı Bayram, police attacked LGBTI+s in Kuğulu”
Following the testimonies, lawyer İlayda Doğa Karaman presented the social media posts targeting the LGBTI+ Pride march to the court, saying: “A group of people, who were aware of the Pride March, made a call for gathering under color of ‘human nature’. They invited everyone to gather at the Hacı Bayram Mosque. New Welfare Party Youth Branches Chairperson Melih Güner targeted LGBTI+s and called people to Kuğulu Park. While there are many images of LGBTI+s in the police investigation report, we could not understand that Islamist groups threatening LGBTI+s were not mentioned at all.”
Lawyer Karaman criticised the police attack on the LGBTI+ Pride march, while on the same day and at the same time marches targeting LGBTI+ people, using hate speech and threatening them took place under police protection:
“The torture continued on the way to and from the hospital after the arrest. The police also prevented us, lawyers, from making statements and the right to a fair trial was violated. Freedom of expression under the Constitution and the ECHR was prevented.”
“Charges copied from the police report and pasted into the indictment”
Lawyer Nergiz Görnas criticised the indictment: “We see an indictment that is far from being a legal text. They have copied and pasted from the police report and written an indictment in the title. It is a text that is far from objectivity and does not have a definition of what action is a crime and why.”
Lawyer Görnas also stated that the right to assembly and march cannot be restricted according to the arbitrariness of the security forces and continued as follows:
“While the actions of the jihadist group, that gathered in Kuğulu Park with the aim of directly targeting the Pride March, are referred as ‘reaction’ in the indictment, it does not include any evidence that could be in favor of the defendants. We can understand from the indictment that a fair investigation process was not carried out. I demand the immediate acquittal of all defendants.”
“LGBTI+ people have been marching in this city for years, the law hasn't changed, so what has changed and the attacks have started?"
Lawyer Abdullah İkbal Arslanbaş said that the march against homophobia had been held peacefully in Ankara for many years, from Kolej to Sakarya, and said, “The law hasn't changed, so what has changed and the attacks have started? Thousands of people were marching in this city with rainbow flags. Suddenly the administration started to arbitrarily prevent and put a ban on them.”
Lawyer Arslanbaş talked about the history of bans on LGBTI+ pride marches and events, explained the reports of NGOs on LGBTI+ pride marches, addressed the court committee and said: “Your decision will be included in these reports either as a positive development in terms of human rights or as a decision that adds to the chain of violations.”
Finally, lawyer Barış Barışık took the floor and said: “The prevention of the Pride march by the police does not only mean the prevention of the freedom of assembly and demonstration. What we call LGBTI+, is not an ideology, it is not an organisation, it is people. It is people’s rights that are being violated. People who take part in the Pride March are there to avoid being killed. This is a fight for the right to life.”
The case was postponed to January 31th, 2024, at 14.00.
From the indictment: “So-called Ankara Pride March”
The indictment refers to the Ankara Pride March as “so-called”, while Islamist groups, who came together in order to attack LGBTI+s on the same day, were referred to as “citizens”. And the statement as “42 suspects were busted during the unlawful protests which were organized by people supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex (Lgbti+) formations” were used for detainee LGBTI+ activists.
Claiming that LGBTI+ activists detained with police violence attacked the police, the prosecutor added that a policeman’s “jeans bought for 299,99 TL was torn” into the indictment. On the other side intense police violence, which was also captured on cameras, was not included in the prosecutor’s indictment.
Pro-IBDA-C slogans were considered as citizen reaction
On the other hand, the prosecutor confessed blacklisting by stating that one of the persons detained during the Pride March is “known for his habitual participation in unlawful protests and being subjected to judicial investigations as a result of this”.
Pro-Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front (IBDA-C), which is directly identified as a terrorist organization, slogans such as “Raiders are here, no passage for heresy” were also included in the indictment as “slogans of some citizens”.
What happened at the 2nd Ankara Pride March?
The police, who allowed anti-LGBTI+ Islamist groups to make hate and lynch calls at Hacı Bayram Mosque and Kuğulu Park, had attacked 2nd Ankara Pride March held on July 5, in 2022.
Kuğulu Park, where the 2nd Ankara Pride March was planned to be held, was encircled with police vehicles before the march. Journalists were driven apart forcibly from the area. And they kicked LGBTI+s out of the park by saying “We will not let the show.”
LGBTI+s brought about the Pride March against all the odds. The slogan “Despite hate, long live life” raised from the back streets of Tunalı Hilmi Avenue.
The police, who took an LGBTI+ activist into custody before the gathering began, detained 42 people by using overmuch tear gas. They practiced rear-handcuffing as a torture. The detainees were released after their testimonies were taken at the Police Department, in the early hours of July 6.
Emre Vural, journalist from Mezopotamya Agency, got maced in the face within the scope of the attacks, in which more than 20 LGBTI+ activists were taken into custody. The police also attacked Aslı Alpar, reporter of KaosGL.org, and injured their leg.
LGBTI+s marched through Tunalı Hilmi Avenue, with various small groups before the attacks. The police attacked and battered LGBTI+s in Bestekar Street and Kennedy Avenue. The press statement of Ankara Pride March was read by marching at Tunalı Hilmi Avenue. On the other side, anti-LGBTI+ religious groups also attempted to attack LGBTI+s.
Translated by: Selma Koçak
Tags: human rights
