FEMEN member talks about time under Turkish police custody
Hurriyet.com.tr
DHA photo
Ukrainian Inna Shevchenko, a member of the FEMEN activist group, said Turkish police refused to communicate with them in a language they understood during their time in detention in Istanbul."We wanted to draw attention to the mistreatment of women in Muslim and Eastern countries," said Shevchenko in reference to the protest FEMEN staged in Istanbul last week.
"The police intervened immediately after we started our protest in Istanbul's Sultanahmet Square," the activist said. "They grabbed our legs and arms and took us to the police station. There we waited for seven hours before they made us sign a statement written in a language we did not understand. They did not even bother to explain it to us."
The activists were then taken to the immigrants' department, where they were allowed tp speak with their lawyers, "but not for long," according to Shevchenko.
Turkish police officers kept speaking Turkish to the Ukrainian activists, Shevchenko said, despite their repeated statements that they only spoke Russian and English. "When they moved to take us to our cells for the night, we resisted because we did not know where they were taking us and they took us by force."
The activist said they were told that they were being deported the next day and were banned from entering Turkey for a year.
'Litmus test'
The way they were treated by the people worked as a "litmus test" to see the culture of democracy in countries they stage protests in, Shevchenko said.
"For instance, no one touched us when we protested in France and Switzerland. In Italy, we were detained, but released immediately after. Our protests in Russia and Turkey have proved to be the most problematic."
