TURKEY: MUNICIPAL POLICE BEAT ANKARA SHOPOWNER FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 001613

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/09/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: MUNICIPAL POLICE BEAT ANKARA SHOPOWNER FOR
SELLING ALCOHOL

Classified By: POL Counselor Daniel O'Grady, reasons 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary and comment: A security camera captured two
municipal policemen beating a shop owner with wooden sticks
in the conservative Ankara district of Kecioren August 14 for
allegedly violating the ban on alcohol sales after 11 p.m.
Opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Ankara MP Yilmaz
Ates alerted the press to the beating, visiting the victim
and criticizing PM Erdogan, a Kecioren resident, for ignoring
the incident. Ates used a meeting with Embassy's human
rights officer about the beating to ratchet up the media
pressure, leading the Ankara Prosecutor's Office to open a
formal investigation. The Kecioren mayor, from the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP),suspended the two
policemen but told us privately the shop owner was a trouble
maker who may have staged the incident. The victim's family
and representatives from the Alevi community said the video
tape belied such "ludicrous" claims, and maintained the
beating was part of a larger trend of conservative
neighborhood pressure. Prejudice against Alevis, alcohol and
local personalities may be behind this event, but Ates's
quick move to portray the incident as evidence of AKP's
alcohol intolerance and fan media interest may be the opening
salvo in the opposition's strategy to discredit AKP as March
2009 local elections approach. End summary and comment.

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Police Beat Alcohol-Selling Shopkeeper In Ankara
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2. (SBU) Security cameras filmed two municipal policemen
("zabita") beating Alevi shopkeeper Metin Sahin August 14 in
Ankara's conservative Kecioren district, after Sahin
allegedly violated a ban on selling alcohol after 11 p.m.
CHP MP Yilmaz Ates told us he alerted the press after
visiting Sahin the night of the incident. Turkey's major
newspapers carried photos from the video tape, and
characterized the incident as overzealous municipal police
imposing their fundamentalist religious principles onto
secular citizens. Mainstream Turkish daily "Vatan" reported
that major supermarket chains do not sell alcohol in their
Kecioren stores; shops that sell alcohol there are under
strict surveillance by the zabita. On blogs and message
boards, citizens criticized Kecioren mayor Turgut Altinok for
allowing an informal zabita group known as the "A Team" to
harass people for holding hands and selling alcohol.


3. (SBU) Meeting with Embassy human rights officer, Ates said
AKP ignored the incident even though three ministers, two
MPs, and PM Erdogan reside in Kecioren, a community of nearly
1 million people. Ates accused Erdogan of acting
hypocritically by remaining silent following Sahin's beating
after he consoled a Kecioren woman last summer who was banned
from her high school graduation ceremony because she insisted
on wearing a headscarf. Ates relayed parts of our private
meeting to the press, fanning media interest that resulted in
a stream of messages to the Embassy from citizens in
Kecioren, Istanbul, and elsewhere, relating similar tales of
zabita harassment.


4. (U) The continued media attention led Parliamentary Human
Rights Committee Chairman Zafer Uskul to request the Ankara
Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation into the
incident. Mayor Altinok told us he suspended the two zabita
officials involved pending the results of the investigation,
which began August 24.

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Mayor Calls Kecioren a Safe, Progressive District
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5. (C) Altinok told us Sahin and his family had filed 27
cases against the municipality and had lost all of them,
resulting in a large debt owed to the town. Sahin failed to
pay the debt, leading the municipality to cancel his
operating license on August 13. Altinok suspected Sahin's
father, a long-time CHP member, colluded with CHP to concoct
the beating incident. While he does not condone violence,
Altinok was reluctant to condemn his officers, who insisted
they were merely defending themselves against an
out-of-control Sahin. Altinok considered it possible Sahin
had staged the incident, noting the video does not show the

ANKARA 00001613 002 OF 002


officers hitting Sahin but merely shows Sahin in a torn
shirt, screaming and crying.


6. (C) Altinok said the incident had nothing to do with
alcohol. He explained that over 100 shops in Kecioren sell
alcohol without problems. During his 14 years as mayor, he
had helped turn a rundown municipality where discrimination
against Alevis was commonplace into a prosperous, safe suburb
where non-residents flock to enjoy local parks and fountains
and different faiths live in harmony. Altinok also accused
his fierce political rival AKP Ankara Municipality Mayor
Melih Gokcek of further stoking the controversy.

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Alevis View Attack as Tip of the Iceberg
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7. (C) Haci Bektas Foundation official Turan Eser called
Altinok's speculation that Sahin framed the incident
outlandish. The video clearly shows the zabita beating
Sahin, he said, and photographs after the beating showed him
with a black eye and severe bruises. Eser rebutted Altinok's
other claims, telling us he and Human Rights Foundation
President Yavuz Onen had examined nine court verdicts in
cases between Sahin and the municipality over the permissible
closing time for the shop; Sahin won all nine. Eser noted
Sahin's father would not collude with CHP because he had quit
the party a decade ago by sending an angry letter to party
leader Deniz Baykal.


8. (C) The incident was entirely about alcohol, according to
Eser. He noted that a billboard at the entrance to Kecioren
bearing the mayor's name is topped by Prophet Mohammed's
words, "Alcoholic Drinking is the Mother of all Evils."
Following Altinok's 1994 election, 14 restaurants serving
alcohol were closed. Eser said women are harassed if they
walk in the municipality's parks past 10 p.m. Sahin's father
told us the beating incident was "the tip of the iceberg of
the discriminatory municipal practices." Leftist Freedom and
Democracy Party (ODP) executive member Haci Ali Golpinar told
the press, "there is a municipality-motivated polarization in
the region, which is almost divided into two sections -- one
for leftist, including Alevis, and one where the AKP
electorate lives. The municipality invests in the latter and
ignores the former." Eser told us the pressure in Kecioren
is part of a larger problem of conservative neighborhood
pressure throughout Turkey, citing a number of incidents over
the past several years in which students have been harassed
and beaten by fellow students for trying to eat in school
cafeterias during Ramazan.

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WILSON