Brutal attack by Turkish police against a Kurdish child

According to the news article of Agency, a 14-year-old Kurdish boy was abducted by the Turkish police while he was returning home with a friend in Lice, a district in the city Diyarbakir, on the evening of 21 March. The boy, who was forced to say that he was Turkish, was thrown into a marsh with his mouth, hands and feet tied after being tortured.

In the video released by the Mesopotamia Agency, it can be seen that the tortured child was injured in many parts of his body. In the footage, the boy describes the attack with the following words: “Four police officers took me by force. They tied my hands and feet. My hands were tied with the scarf I was carrying, and my feet were shackled with handcuffs. They hit me with the butt of the gun and started to threaten me.”

The child, Y.D., was first taken to a secluded field on a country road. The police forced Y.D. to say that he was Turkish, then they beat him while compelling him to swear to the Kurds, and to sing the Turkish National Anthem. The seriously injured child was left in the swamp next to a creek with his mouth and hands tied. A villager noticed the boy, who was left for dead, in the middle of the night and took him to the hospital. Y.D. runs the risk of losing an eye.

The lawyer of the child, Ramazan Karalp, talked to the Mezopotamya Agency about the attack: “The child lives in the center of Lice. While returning home with his friends in the evening, he was stopped by the police. They let his 10-year-old friend go and took the boy to a remote place. They beat them with gun butts. While the police were beating him, they were constantly trying to make him say “I am a Turk” and forcing him to swear at Kurds. The child, who was given an assault report at Lice State Hospital, is transferred to Dicle University Medical Faculty. He is currently being treated at the hospital and is at risk of losing his right eye.”