Young Turkish protesters face rude awakening in police custody

University students, next to banners reading "this blockade will be lifted" (L) and "Boycott at University" (R), take part in a rally in support of Istanbul mayor, nine days after his arrest, at Seymenler Park in Ankara, on March 28, 2025. [AFP] After rising up to rally against the arrest of Istanbul's powerful opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, young Turkish protesters have been forced to wake up to the reality of police custody. Lawyers and politicians supportive of Imamoglu, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's top political challenger, have slammed the "police brutality" suffered by students arrested for taking part in the country's worst unrest for more than a decade. "They are being put into the same cells with dangerous criminals such as murder and sexual assault convicts," said Ferhat Guzel, a lawyer who has rushed to the defence of several students whose names he withheld for their safety. As a result of their dangerous cellmates, his clients were "scared to sleep, go to the restroom and eat", Guzel said. In Istanbul alone, police arrested 511 students for taking part in the demonstrations, of which 275 were detained, the lawyer added. But the real number was likely higher, he said. "To begin with, many of these detentions and pre-trial arrests are unfounded," Guzel said. Many of the students were detained at night or while leaving the area where the protests were taking place "with no supporting evidence regarding the charges", Guzel said, adding that police often denied detained protesters communication with their families or lawyers. And while in pre-trial detention, "we know that many students were subjected to the police brutality, in forms of physical and verbal abuse," he added. 'Handcuffed for hours' Ozgur Ozel, head of Imamoglu's opposition CHP party, likewise denounced the police's treatment of young protesters since the unrest erupted on March 19. "These students were mistreated, handcuffed behind their backs with clamps, then left in corridors for hours without being told which prison they would be sent to," said Ozel. While visiting Imamoglu in the western Istanbul prison of Silivri on Sunday, the CHP head took the opportunity to meet young people held at the penitentiary. Besides insults and "psychological torture", the politician slammed the "kicks in the face" suffered by the prisoners, adding that some guards applied pressure to the heads of inmates lying on the ground. Also in the dock in Silivri was Sinan Can, a 22-year-old arrested during the Istanbul protests whose father, Sinan Karahan, got to visit on Friday. "He told me that there were many wounded students in the prison," his father told AFP. A 19-year-old economics student at the Istanbul Technical University, who had several friends jailed, told AFP they were denied water and the right to go to the toilet while in custody. Women were also prevented from having access to period products, she said. Aged around 20, the majority of these young protesters are attending rallies for the first time in their lives -- and have found themselves in the dock as a result, while their terrified parents look on. "Most of them have never even spent a night outside the family home," a lawyer wrote last week on the X social media network. 'Going to beat them' "Some of the students I have represented also cried after hearing about the pre-trial arrests, begging to not to be handed to the police as they were going to beat them," lawyer Guzel said. Turkey's healthcare professional associations have likewise offered accounts of "ill-treatment during arrests, detentions, police custody and judicial proceedings". These took place "in particular in the major cities", they said in a statement. Guzel said the worst conditions -- where protesters were shoved cheek-by-jowl with conviction rapists and murderers -- were found in pre-trial detention. Most of the students have had their pre-trial hearing dates fixed for around mid-April. CHP chief Ozel said they "should not be kept in detention for another eighteen or twenty days until their first hearing", urging their release as "none of them have blood on their hands". The opposition leader added those affected should "preserve the evidence to demand accountability when the time comes". Police have arrested at least 2,000 people since Imamoglu's detention, of whom 263 had been imprisoned, Turkey's interior ministry said on Thursday. It has not updated its figures since.

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