Top Turkish court rules retrial of police officers who broke arm of Gezi Park victim's mother

Duvar English

Turkey’s Constitutional Court (AYM) has ruled that the police had violated the ban on ill-treatment when they broke the arm of Gülsüm Elvan during her detention back in 2017. 

The court also ordered the state to pay Elvan 20,000 liras for non-pecuniary damage and demanded that a retrial take place against police officers who broke Elvan's arm. 

Gülsüm Elvan, the mother of the 15-year-old Berkin Elvan who was killed during the 2013 Gezi Protests, took part in a protest in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district in 2017 to show solidarity for dismissed educators Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça.

During the protest, the police detained Gülsüm Elvan and handcuffed her behind her back, breaking her arm. 

Afterwards, although Elvan filed a criminal complaint against the police officers question, prosecutors ruled a verdict of non-prosecution. 

The case was then taken to the Constitutional Court which ruled that the “ban on ill-treatment,” which is guaranteed in Article 17 of the Constitution, was violated during Elvan’s detention. 

Gülmen and Özakça went on a hunger strike in March 2017, after being dismissed from their jobs through a state of emergency decree. Gülmen and Özakça were arrested two months later on charges of belonging to the outlawed militant leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party (DHKP-C). The authorities released Gülmen in December 2017, whereas Özakça in October 2017.

After spending almost 11 months in hunger strike, Gülmen and Özakça ended their protest in January 2018.

Gülsüm Elvan’s child Berkin Elvan was shot by a tear gas canister fired by police during the Gezi Park protests, which took place in Istanbul’s Taksim following a harsh government response to a group of protesters trying to prevent the cutting down of trees for a large development project planned by the government in 2013.

Elvan died in March 2014 after 269 days in a coma.