In Turkey it is now forbidden to take back the police in action. This was established on April 27, 2021 by a circular from the Ministry of the Interior signed by Mehmet Aktaş, director general of the Turkish police. The directive authorizes police officers to arrest and subject to legal measures anyone found in the act of filming the police in action. The directive has already been applied during the unauthorized demonstrations that took place in Istanbul on 1 May, during which 300 people were arrested.
The circular states that the reason for this prohibition is to protect the privacy of agents, which would be put at risk by the dissemination of these videos. “There is no doubt” the document says, “that the publication of recordings of a person’s voice and images, without his or her authorization, is a violation of privacy, which is one of the fundamental rights of the person, and of data confidentiality. personal “. “The products of these violations of privacy” continues the circular, “which sometimes become such as to make it impossible for our staff to fulfill their duty, then are published online, endangering the safety and privacy of our staff and people”. «These shots» adds the circular, «which are published, often give only a partial view of the events. This not only affects our staff, but also leads public opinion to make wrong assessments on our institution ». For all these reasons, police officers “must not allow anyone to immortalize images and sounds during the performance of their duties, preventing people from such behaviors that will allow them to assume such sounds and images during the performance of their duties, preventing to people to take them back, adopting the necessary legal measures when the law allows ».
Circular from the Ministry of Interior to guarantee staff before May 1.
If your staff tortures while performing their duties, a record is made and evidence is collected. Because repeatedly, torture is not within your scope of duty, it is a crime! pic.twitter.com/AFiARI20yT– ÇHD Istanbul Branch (@CHDistanbul) April 29, 2021
The circular was released on April 29 by Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği (“Association of Progressive Lawyers”) which in a Tweet published the text of the circular. According to the ÇHD, the purpose of the circular is to protect police officers, allowing them to act anonymously and without any control during any protests that could have occurred during the day of 1 May. «If your staff» says the ÇHD in her tweet, «in the performance of their duties they commit acts of torture, they are recorded and these constitute evidence. This is because, we repeat, torture is not part of your duties, torture is illegal! ». In another tweet published on May 1 by the Ankara section of the association, he recalled that “if you witness a crime, you can collect evidence by recording audio and video”.
The rights associations have defined the decision as a real act of censorship, aimed at not making known the violence and brutality of the police, thus preventing public scrutiny. The authorities have not made any comments, except that the measure serves to protect the privacy of the agents and that it does not concern journalists. Yet many journalists who tried to document the protests and reactions of the police on 1 May reported being hindered in the exercise of their work. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the CHP, the Republican People’s Party, the main opposition force to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, commented on the circulate saying: “This circular means that democracy has been suspended in Turkey, that the constitution has been suspended, that rights and freedoms have been suspended ”.