JINHA

NEWS CENTER – Turkish courts have refused to open an investigation into police who strip-searched a woman during the Gezi Park protests on the basis that the woman behaved "loosely."

After Ahmet Atakan was slain by police during the Gezi Park protests in the city of Hatay, Istanbul protestors took to the streets of the Kadıköy neighborhood in Istanbul. 39-year-old woman M.P.B. experienced a fracture in her leg after police kicked her during their intervention. Police then arrested her and took her to the Iskele Police Station, where a policewoman strip-searched her. Her friend M.Y., also arrested that day, reported that the same policewoman had strip-searched her as well.

M.P.B. first filed a case related to the strip search in April 2014, but the state prosecutor rejected it. The lawyers opened a new case and requested that the Kadıköy District Governorship open an investigation, but the governorship refused, writing in their decision that the woman "used very loose gestures in the police station."

The state prosecutor also refused to prosecute in the case for a second time. The same has happened to the case of M.Y., who also tried to open a case.

Investigators, who reviewed DVD footage from the day, said in their statement that the policewoman justified the excessive length of the search because the arrestee had excessive jewelry and hair accessories.

(zd/fk/cm)