Turkish police threaten to kill man after detaining him

Turkish police have threatened to kill a man after detaining him in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır. The detained man's father told Mesopotamia Agency that police officers stood behind his son with weapons and said, "We will kill you."

Tuesday November 09 2021 01:29 pm

Duvar English

The father of a man who was detained over “being a member of a terrorist organization” in the Kurdish majority southeastern province of Diyarbakır has said that the police had conducted a brutish raid on his home and threatened to kill his son.

Hikmet Bayhan, whose son Behçet Bayhan was arrested in Diyarbakır's Lice district on Oct. 22, said that whilst conducting the raid on his house, the police behaved cruelly after entering his house at 4 a.m. by smashing the front door.

“I suffer from heart problems and could have had a heart attack,” Bayhan told Mesopotamia Agency, adding that the operation had also frightened his children.

“When my son asked the police what his crime was, they shouted ‘Kneel’ before tying his hands behind his back and keeping him on his knees on the concrete floor and in the cold. They stood behind him with weapons and told him 'We will kill you,'" the father recalled.

"As the police walked inside my home with their shoes on, I asked them to take them off, telling them that I prayed inside. They told me to shut up."

Hikmet Bayhan added that on the same night, the police had first raided his brother’s house instead of his own on the grounds that they had gotten their names mixed up.

“They brought everyone into the living room and beat my nephew shouting ‘Why are you looking at me!’” he said.