“They beat us, threatened us with death, and as they left, they said ‘we’ll be back’”

In a press release by Murat Sur and Birdal Nakay, they told about how they were kidnapped near their home, how they were beaten for hours, and how they were threatened with death by people carrying walkie-talkies.

“I was smoking a cigarette around 1:00 am in front of my house in Okmeydanı. A man approached me and asked for a light. Just as I was taking out my lighter, 3-4 people tackled me and put me on a minibus. One of them had a club in his hand and they kept hitting me. I understood they were police because of the sounds from the walkie-talkie.”

This was how Murat Sur explained his experiences from the night of 11 October.

Sur, who held his press conference in the Orhan Adli Apaydın Conference Room together with Günay Dağ, a lawyer from the People’s Legal Bureau, said that the people who put him in the minibus drove it to an empty field, where they beat him until early in the morning.

“They asked me whether or not I had organized demonstrations, they stuck a gun to my stomach. They beat me up and I was also subject to insults and profanity. Around 5:00 am, they tossed me from the moving vehicle on a road near Okmeydanı and drove away, shouting ‘We’ll be back in fifteen days.’”

Sur and Mr. Dağ, his attorney, explained that on 15 October they submitted an official criminal complaint to the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor.

Following the criminal complaint, Sur was examined by the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Sur said that although four days had passed since the event, the report noted that bruises and marks from the blows were still present on his body.

Around the same time, a similar experience happened to Birdal Nakay. On 9 October, a minibus came up beside Nakay, who was handing out leaflets. The 6-7 people who emerged from inside forced him into the vehicle. (Bianet)