Several complaints filed about violence at Ankara protests

ANKARA

The Consumer Rights Association (THD) filed criminal complaints about senior authorities including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for using pepper gas against protesters who have held demonstrations in support of the Gezi Park unrest, while the Ankara Bar Association separately filed a criminal complaint about persons who allegedly drove into the crowd at Kızılay Square during protests on June 2.

THD president Turhan Çakar said İrfan Tuna, working at a dershane – private tutoring school – on Tunalı Hilmi Street died of a heart attack triggered by tear gas.

Both associations filed their complaint petitions at the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on June 10. THD filed complaints against Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Ankara Gov. Alaaddin Yüksel and Ankara Police Chief Kadir Ay, with Çakar telling reporters that the use of tear gas bombs had threatened the lives of tens of thousands of people and some of those who were exposed to this material were sitting at home.

In their petition, the lawyers from the Ankara Bar Association said there were eyewitness accounts of a car, with license plate “61 ES 459,” driving into the people making a lot of fast maneuvers.

Of those people, İsmail A.’s life is still in danger, and Eren Ö. and Burak S. were wounded in several places, they said.

“It is meaningful that the said car was able to pass the barricades and arrived at Kızılay Square,” they said, noting that all the roads to Kızılay Square had been closed for security and no vehicle’s entrance or exit had been allowed on that particular day.

At Parliament, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Hüseyin Aygün was accompanied by the families of two victims of the violence during protests.

The families were of Ethem Sarısülük, who was allegedly shot by a police officer during protests and who has been in a vegetative state since then, and of Dilan Ece Yıldız, who had a brain stroke after being hit in the head with a gas bomb cartridge and whose situation is stable now.

Mustafa Sarısülük, Ethem Sarısülük’s brother, requested the arrest of the police officer he said shot his brother.