Woman detained for protesting Turkish PM Erdoğan with shoebox

MANİSA - Cihan News Agency

Nurhan Gül has been released pending trial after she was taken to the police station and questioned for two hours. CİHAN photo

Turkish police detained a woman in the western province of Manisa on Dec. 29 after she protested against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with a shoebox, in a reference to money found in shoeboxes during a major corruption operation.

Police seized $4.5 million in cash in shoeboxes during the bribery raid in the house of Süleyman Aslan on Dec. 18, the general manager of the state-run lender Halkbank.

The woman, identified as Nurhan Gül, reportedly showed a shoebox from her balcony while Erdoğan was addressing his supporters during a rally in Manisa’s Akhisar district. Shortly after Gül’s protest, police and bodyguards of the prime minister came and detained the woman.

Gül has been released pending trial after she was taken to the police station and questioned for two hours.

“I waved the empty shoebox and sat at my balcony. I did not use any word or verbal expression. Bodyguards and police came to my house after one or two minutes. They asked who waved that box. I was detained after saying it was me,” Gül said in her testimony.

Gül added that she wanted to protest her 690-lira retirement salary because she thought the reason of her low salary was due to investigations into the police and prosecutors instead of defrauder and thieves.

Halkbank manager Aslan was arrested Dec. 21 by a court on duty in Istanbul on charges of taking bribes, while businessman Reza Zarrab was charged with forming a ring that bribed officials to help disguise illegal gold sales to Iran via Halkbank.