We have the voice, where is the image?

YILMAZ ÖZDİL yozdil@hurriyet.com.tr

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan participated in the opening ceremony for the City Surveillance Cameras (Mobese) center. He said the biggest aid against criminals was technology. He also said the camera system provided a vital function in the catching of criminals. While the prime minister was delivering his speech, the lunch call to prayer (ezan) started. He gave a break for the ezan, before continuing his speech to say that the camera systems were extremely effective in fighting organized crime.  

The moment when Gezi demonstrator Ethem Sarısülük was shot was included in the case file. When the policeman fires and Ethem falls to the ground, the direction of the Mobese changes and it starts filming the clouds in the sky.

There were seven Mobese cameras in the neighborhood where Gezi demonstrator Ali İhsan Korkmaz was beaten to death by police, but no images were found. “The police’s water cannon vehicle (TOMA) squirted water. This may be the reason why cameras were broken,” they said.

When Mehmet Ayvalıtaş was run over by a vehicle, police reported the incident. They said there were no images of the incident. Nine months later images emerged. The Mobese had recorded everything second by second.

They said Gezi protester Ahmet Atakan was hit by a gas capsule while he was on the roof. This was quite impossible, others said. So the Mobese records were reviewed. In the recordings, Ahmet fell from the roof in an unconscious state, without any bodily movement, without any struggle. 

Police commissioner Mustafa Sarı fell from an underpass construction and became a martyr. They said he was killed, that he was pushed. Minds were blurred: “Is there any truth in this?” There was only one way to learn. As always, the mobese cameras had captured the truth.

Gezi protestor Abdullah Cömert was killed. “How do you know he was killed?” they said. “Were you there at the time. Did you see with your own eyes that he was killed?” they asked. Well, we were not there of course… But Mobese cameras were there. We have seen how he was killed by a gas capsule.

They said, “They attacked my headscarf-wearing sister. Half-naked men wearing leather gloves and black bandanas in broad daylight took her six-month old baby from its pram and shook her about while laughing. They threw her in the air. They rubbed their genitals on the head of the covered woman; they peed on her headscarf. They cursed, they kicked the headscarf-wearing woman on the ground, the woman fainted.” There were also journalists who declared, “Yes, I watched the images of this cruelty.”
 
There were other journalists who said, “Yes, I have seen the bruises on the woman’s body.” There were journalists who said they were witnesses to the barbarism. Nine months later, Mobese recordings were posted. Everything was a lie, the Mobese recordings showed the truth.

There was a news story printed in September. Because of the Gezi incidents, security measures in and around the prime minister’s house in Üsküdar’s Kısıklı neighborhood were increased; the number of Mobese cameras on its route were increased.

So leave aside, guys, telling stories about whether it was montage or dubbing. Broadcast the Mobese camera recordings on the day of Dec. 17 at Kısıklı. What kind of traffic occurred after that particular phone call? What happened after it was dark? Which brother-in-law, uncle, or sister arrived? Who departed, and with which number plates? Let’s see who was where.

Yılmaz Özdil is a columnist for daily Hürriyet in which this piece was published on Feb 28. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.