Post by hellboy87 on Dec 4, 2008 11:17:44 GMT -5
Dec 5, 2008
KEBABBLE
Hair-raising raid shames Turkey's police
By Fazile Zahir
FETHIYE, Turkey - After a hard day's work some men like to relax in bars and restaurants in Istanbul where rather than having to approach unknown and perhaps intimidating women, they are provided with bar girls who are paid to chat and flirt with them.
The drinks flow, the Hammond organ plays and everyone gets along a treat, unless of course clients try to take affairs one stage further. Five such men, Yusuf K, 27, Cesim G, 28, Yildirim A, 19, Mehmet D, 26 and Hakan F, 30, spent a warm summer evening in August at a girly bar and restaurant in Avcilar, a state of Istanbul.
At the end of the night and enamored of Miss A C, who had spent the evening with them, the men asked the management if they could buy some more time and take her home with them. Management refused and a prolonged argument began which ended with the five men being roughed up and thrown into the street.
Returning home, the five were furious. Yusuf led them in planning their revenge on both the bar and Miss A C. Four nights later they returned to Avcilar. As they piled out of their car, Cesim brutally knocked the bouncer at the door to his feet.
On entering, Yusuf went over to the organist and swiftly rapped both him and his Hammond into silence. Stunned patrons watched as Yusuf, Yildirim, Mehmet and Hakan searched the restaurant for Miss A C. On finding her, Yusuf grabbed her hair and viciously yanked her out of her seat. No one made any effort to stop them as Yusuf hauled her, by the hair, out of the premises, down 50 meters of stairs and into their car.
Security camera footage shows with startling clarity the pain and fear on Miss A C's face, the brutal, caveman-like behavior of Yusuf, and the total immobility of the bar's staff, management and clientele.
How did the five men manage to pull off the abduction with such little resistance? Simple, they spent 85 lira ($54) at the Mahmutpasa bazaar on disguises. Among their purchases was a flashing blue light which was mounted on their dashboard and two vests with the word POLIS written on them. The acquisition of these easily appropriated items gave them the apparent authority to behave however they pleased.
Miss A C was subsequently taken to a house in Istanbul's suburbs and raped for six hours. On being released she immediately went to the police and all five men were subsequently apprehended and charged.
The case came to trial this week. A tape of the abduction was released to the Turkish media on Monday and played throughout the night on main news shows. It has raised questions both about the easy availability of police paraphernalia, and the resignation with which the Turkish public respond to police brutality. It seems that the reputation of the Turkish police for cruelty, and the many instances of police violence broadcast on TV, make this type of appalling behavior acceptable.
The Istanbul police chief, Celalettin Cerrah, has since held a press conference asking the public to not trust someone's authority simply on the basis of a uniform. "Two people in police vests go into a place of entertainment. They forcibly remove a woman. And no one there says 'Can I see your ID card?'. And after that no one calls 155 [the emergency line] and says this has happened. Even if they had been real police we would have investigated this. There is no way this sort of behavior would have been officially sanctioned. I am asking our citizens - don't believe everyone who says he is a policeman. Always ask for ID and if you don't believe the ID call 155 to have it verified."
He also made the belated point that it's as easy to buy items of police uniform in other countries as it is in Turkey. In the past the market in police goods was much less accessible, but now anyone can buy the uniform of just about any police force in the world online in a matter of minutes.
The reality of police interactions is much more difficult to manage than Cerrah makes it sound. In an ideal world an encounter with a presumed police officer needs verification of identity just like that of a doctor or even a plumber. Unlike those situations, there mostly isn't time to ask for a friend's recommendation or to see examples of their work. In large cities where society is made up of strangers, urban dwellers must rely on emblems like uniforms and badges to verify a person's authenticity.
In some cases the uniforms may even be real while the wearer has no right to use them. The opportunities for confusion are manifold, and because of the need for immediate action law enforcement situations will always be messier than others with respect to identification.
Although what happened to this young woman is a tragedy, perhaps the more significant damage has been done to society as a whole. By impersonating police as a ploy to get unobstructed access to the bar, the criminals appropriated a social identity and manipulated the expectations of the diners of how the police behave. They undermined whatever little trust in authority those Turkish people had.
All who have watched the graphic incident on their television screens must have asked themselves what they would have done in the same situation. Despite what Cerrah encourages, there are few brave enough to question the police, especially not when they are armed and violent. Somehow citizens are expected to be both cooperative and skeptical, to know that the police can behave inhumanly and yet to challenge that behavior when and if it occurs.
The abduction of a bar girl in Avcilar raises important issues for the Turkish police whose public perception needs to be improved. Still, this incident represents a tiny part of the modern world's maelstrom of confusion over identity and deception.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London. She moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing full time since then.
(Copyright 2008 Fazile Zahir.)
Turkish men are soooo wild,barbaric,uncivilized,stupid!
The women? Ermmm...they support that,and encourage it.
What do you expect? When you see slogans like he who is a Turk is proud etc etc and you know what Turk means,LOL!
KEBABBLE
Hair-raising raid shames Turkey's police
By Fazile Zahir
FETHIYE, Turkey - After a hard day's work some men like to relax in bars and restaurants in Istanbul where rather than having to approach unknown and perhaps intimidating women, they are provided with bar girls who are paid to chat and flirt with them.
The drinks flow, the Hammond organ plays and everyone gets along a treat, unless of course clients try to take affairs one stage further. Five such men, Yusuf K, 27, Cesim G, 28, Yildirim A, 19, Mehmet D, 26 and Hakan F, 30, spent a warm summer evening in August at a girly bar and restaurant in Avcilar, a state of Istanbul.
At the end of the night and enamored of Miss A C, who had spent the evening with them, the men asked the management if they could buy some more time and take her home with them. Management refused and a prolonged argument began which ended with the five men being roughed up and thrown into the street.
Returning home, the five were furious. Yusuf led them in planning their revenge on both the bar and Miss A C. Four nights later they returned to Avcilar. As they piled out of their car, Cesim brutally knocked the bouncer at the door to his feet.
On entering, Yusuf went over to the organist and swiftly rapped both him and his Hammond into silence. Stunned patrons watched as Yusuf, Yildirim, Mehmet and Hakan searched the restaurant for Miss A C. On finding her, Yusuf grabbed her hair and viciously yanked her out of her seat. No one made any effort to stop them as Yusuf hauled her, by the hair, out of the premises, down 50 meters of stairs and into their car.
Security camera footage shows with startling clarity the pain and fear on Miss A C's face, the brutal, caveman-like behavior of Yusuf, and the total immobility of the bar's staff, management and clientele.
How did the five men manage to pull off the abduction with such little resistance? Simple, they spent 85 lira ($54) at the Mahmutpasa bazaar on disguises. Among their purchases was a flashing blue light which was mounted on their dashboard and two vests with the word POLIS written on them. The acquisition of these easily appropriated items gave them the apparent authority to behave however they pleased.
Miss A C was subsequently taken to a house in Istanbul's suburbs and raped for six hours. On being released she immediately went to the police and all five men were subsequently apprehended and charged.
The case came to trial this week. A tape of the abduction was released to the Turkish media on Monday and played throughout the night on main news shows. It has raised questions both about the easy availability of police paraphernalia, and the resignation with which the Turkish public respond to police brutality. It seems that the reputation of the Turkish police for cruelty, and the many instances of police violence broadcast on TV, make this type of appalling behavior acceptable.
The Istanbul police chief, Celalettin Cerrah, has since held a press conference asking the public to not trust someone's authority simply on the basis of a uniform. "Two people in police vests go into a place of entertainment. They forcibly remove a woman. And no one there says 'Can I see your ID card?'. And after that no one calls 155 [the emergency line] and says this has happened. Even if they had been real police we would have investigated this. There is no way this sort of behavior would have been officially sanctioned. I am asking our citizens - don't believe everyone who says he is a policeman. Always ask for ID and if you don't believe the ID call 155 to have it verified."
He also made the belated point that it's as easy to buy items of police uniform in other countries as it is in Turkey. In the past the market in police goods was much less accessible, but now anyone can buy the uniform of just about any police force in the world online in a matter of minutes.
The reality of police interactions is much more difficult to manage than Cerrah makes it sound. In an ideal world an encounter with a presumed police officer needs verification of identity just like that of a doctor or even a plumber. Unlike those situations, there mostly isn't time to ask for a friend's recommendation or to see examples of their work. In large cities where society is made up of strangers, urban dwellers must rely on emblems like uniforms and badges to verify a person's authenticity.
In some cases the uniforms may even be real while the wearer has no right to use them. The opportunities for confusion are manifold, and because of the need for immediate action law enforcement situations will always be messier than others with respect to identification.
Although what happened to this young woman is a tragedy, perhaps the more significant damage has been done to society as a whole. By impersonating police as a ploy to get unobstructed access to the bar, the criminals appropriated a social identity and manipulated the expectations of the diners of how the police behave. They undermined whatever little trust in authority those Turkish people had.
All who have watched the graphic incident on their television screens must have asked themselves what they would have done in the same situation. Despite what Cerrah encourages, there are few brave enough to question the police, especially not when they are armed and violent. Somehow citizens are expected to be both cooperative and skeptical, to know that the police can behave inhumanly and yet to challenge that behavior when and if it occurs.
The abduction of a bar girl in Avcilar raises important issues for the Turkish police whose public perception needs to be improved. Still, this incident represents a tiny part of the modern world's maelstrom of confusion over identity and deception.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London. She moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing full time since then.
(Copyright 2008 Fazile Zahir.)
Turkish men are soooo wild,barbaric,uncivilized,stupid!
The women? Ermmm...they support that,and encourage it.
What do you expect? When you see slogans like he who is a Turk is proud etc etc and you know what Turk means,LOL!