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. -------------- --- Police Beat Alcohol-Selling Shopkeeper In Ankara -------------- --- ¶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. -------------- -------------- Mayor Calls Kecioren a Safe, Progressive District -------------- -------------- ¶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. -------------- Alevis View Attack as Tip of the Iceberg -------------- ¶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. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey WILSON