The proposal to form a subcommitteeto investigate the violence of the security forces at May Day has been repelledin the Committee to Investigate Human Rights by the votes of the Justice andDevelopment Party (AKP) members. The members from the Nationalist MovementParty and the Democratic Left Party did not participate in the vote.

Ahmet Ersin, a member inthe same committee from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) said that theincidents in May Day were serious violations of people’s rights. Notinvestigating this brutality that the whole world watched will damage the imageof both Turkeyand this committee. 

Ersin: The minister ofinterior threatened both the Governor and the Police Chief

Ersin claimed that theminister of interior Beşir Atalay called İstanbul Governor Muammer Güler andtold him that if the unions made it to Taksim Square then he would lose his job,but he would make sure that he shared the same fate. The CHP deputy also addedthat the Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah told his officers that he would personally bludgeon themif he saw even three activists standing 500 meters from Taksim Square.

AKP members did not seehuman right violations in May Day incidents

Ersin communicated theseallegations and the discussions to Bianet in following sentences:

“I heard these allegationsfrom a reliable source, a first level police chief.  We, the CHP members, told on May 2 that thesubcommittee should have an emergency meeting to investigate the May Day images.The meeting took place yesterday, but the AKP members stated that they did notthink there were human right violations.

They said that the subjectwas discussed in the Parliament because of our president’s proposal to discussthe Prime Minister’s handling of May Day and therefore there was no furtherneed to discuss the matter.

In return, we told themthat “this was a political undertaking and it was killed by the AKP deputies.But the committee is attached to the Speaker of the Parliament, not to thegovernment. Therefore it should investigate the incidents from the perspectiveof human rights. At the end they refused our proposal to form a subcommittee.”

Ersin stated that it was aone-sided decision, based only on reports from the Governorship and the PoliceDepartment, that the victims of the incidents and the unions were not questioned.(KM/GG/TB)