JINHA

ISTANBUL –Yesterday, police attacked women lawyers when they reacted to invasive security pat downsat the courthouse that witnessed Tuesday's "hostage operation," in which three died. Lawyers say the searches are unconstitutional.

On Tuesday, two members of the DHKC (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front) took hostage the prosecutor assigned to the case of teenager Berkin Elvan, killed by police. The DHKC members demanded that the names of the police officers responsible for Berkin's death be released, as they have not been so far in the long case. All three in the room lost their lives after a bloody police intervention.

Security conditions at the courthouse have been high since Tuesday, with guards forcibly giving pat downs to lawyers entering. Yesterday afternoon, feminist lawyer ÖzlemÖzkanreacted by taking off her clothes in the lobby of the courthouse. Lawyers had organized a strip-down protest against the high security measures.

"Don't touch lawyers or you'll get burned; lawyers resist," read the t-shirts of the lawyers as they stripped off their clothes to walk through the checkpoint, chanting slogans. Police attacked the lawyers, dragging them across the floor to arrest them. One lawyer fainted; an ambulance took her to the hospital.

"At this point these searches are in conflict with the 20^th article of the constitution," said lawyer VolkanGültekin. The searches, involving searching inside lawyers' bags with an X-ray device, need a written order from a judge. Guards say they are acting on "spoken instructions" from a prosecutor.

"What's more, security guards absolutely do not have the authority to conduct searches. They aren't wearing a badge," said Volkan. "If we didn't come out against this, we wouldn't be legal professionals."

After it was learned that the hostage-takers entered in lawyers' robes, President Erdoğan made public remarks implying that lawyers had too many freedoms.

"It has gotten so that everything that comes out of the President's mouth in this country is treated as a legal order," said lawyer SezinUçar, of the group Law Bureau of the Oppressed. "The state carried out a massacre in plain sight at Çağlayan Courthouse. To cover this up, they're trying to make it seem as if lawyers are responsible."

Sezin noted that the state had no such response when, a year ago, HanimeAslan's ex-husband shot her in the middle of the courthouse in her divorce case—which lawyers say, like the police's bloody intervention against the hostage-takers themselves, shows the disparities in whose right to life in Turkey is protected.

(zd/cm)