Claims About the Coronavirus and the Prayer Bans
The Night of 21 May 2020 in the Words of Those Who Were Beaten
Fact
This page is not an answer to a claim; it is a record. The intervention against those who wanted to perform the tarawih prayer in Adana on the night of 21 May 2020 was recounted eight days later by the people who lived through it, in their own words, at the forum entitled "Police Violence and the Provocateur Claims" held on 29 May 2020. The information below has been drawn from the recording of that forum.
The common thread running through the accounts is this: the intervention began not at the place where the prayer was performed, but as people were leaving it. When the police said "it is forbidden" in Merkez Park, the group began to disperse; those who asked for the written form of the governor's office decision were shown no paper, and were told, "I am the one who bans the prayer here."
What the seven people who spoke at the forum described is this: being pushed with shields, pepper gas into the mouth from close range, being handcuffed behind the back, a knee and a foot pressed down on the neck, a kick with a boot under the eye of a person already subdued on the ground, being beaten while made to pass between two rows of police at the entrance of the police station, insults and swearing in the custody vehicle.
The detentions, which began at the hour of the isha prayer, went on until morning, and the number of those taken reached 47. At the police station those who wanted to perform the isha and tarawih prayers were not allowed to; they performed them in the corridor all the same. When it was said that no pre-dawn meal would be given, simit and ayran were sent in from outside. Some of the medical reports on the beatings were found to be of a gravity beyond what a general practitioner could certify, and were referred to a specialist.
How this night was conveyed to the public as a "prayer provocation" is dealt with under a separate heading: The Claim That They Staged a Prayer Provocation in Adana.
Where does the record come from?
On the night of Friday 29 May 2020 a forum entitled "Police Violence and the Provocateur Claims" was held. The people who had been taken into custody in Adana eight days earlier, on the night of 21 May 2020, took the microphone there one after another. The accounts below rest on that recording.
How the incident began
Recep Kardaş says that he and five or six friends took their prayer mats and went to Merkez Park, wanting to perform the isha and tarawih prayers in keeping with social distancing. When the police did not allow it, they asked to see the decision of the governor's office; no paper was shown. The answer he reports is this: "I am the one who bans the prayer here, and I am not showing the paper of the governor's office either." Thereupon the riot police began to push them away with shields.
Kadir Yılmaz was stopped as he was walking outside the courtyard of the Merkez Mosque, his identity card was taken, and he was told that "parks and gardens are forbidden". He moved away and crossed to the other side of the road; he saw the intervention from there. On his way to his car he saw five or six people standing up to pray and joined them, and was taken into custody as soon as the prayer ended.
During the detentions
Huzeyfe Yılmaz had begun to move away when he saw two of his friends being taken into custody, and he went over to them to calm the situation. According to his account, pepper gas was sprayed into his mouth before he had opened it; he was forced to the ground and, as he was being handcuffed behind his back, pressure was applied to his neck. He recounts that he said his neck would break and that the person pressing did not stop. That same night at the police station he was issued a fine of 3,180 lira for contravening the public health law; the record was marked "declined to sign".
Şakir was born and raised in Germany and came to Turkey in order to practise his religion more freely. He was not there when the incident took place; he went after hearing that there had been an intervention against a friend of his. He says that the motorcycle helmet in his hand fell to the ground, that a senior police officer picked the helmet up and struck him with it, and that afterwards, while he lay subdued on the ground, another police officer kicked him with a boot under the left eye. His eye swelled up within a few hours; at the police station he was not even given ice.
Ebubekir was not among those praying either. He recounts that as he was trying to move away a police officer on a motorcycle rode at him several times, and that eight or ten police officers then intervened. He has aplastic anaemia and has had a bone marrow transplant; he states that he said he could not breathe and that the intervention continued nonetheless. He adds that at the police station the lawyer's request for the handcuffs behind his back to be removed was disregarded, and that at the hospital a friend of his was not allowed to pray.
Ramazan recounts that he was not allowed to join those praying on the central reservation, and that after they had been taken into custody he too was told to leave. He says that as he was leaving a plain-clothes police officer ran after him and punched him in the face, that his lip was split and his nose bled. The forensic medicine doctor stated that the examination had to be carried out by a specialist; he was referred to another hospital and obtained a report.
Volkan Tulumtaş says that he went to the front of the police station to find out the situation of his friends, that when they were told to "disperse" they turned their backs and walked away, and that the blows came at that moment. He recounts that at the very moment they were cornered the police officers were shouting "do not hit the police". At the police station those who wanted to perform the isha prayer were told, "do not pray, the statements will be delayed".
The end of the night
The custody procedures went on until morning. Those who came did not leave the front of the house until their friends inside were released, and the wait there lasted until nine in the morning. When it was said at the police station that no pre-dawn meal would be given, simit and ayran were sent in from outside. The dawn prayer was performed in the street the police had closed, with about three hundred people, one and a half metres being left between them; the footage put on the screens the next day under the heading "prayer with zero distance" is not the tarawih but that dawn prayer. Those in custody were released in the morning after their statements had been taken.
The legal side of the record
At the forum Kuytul touches on two technical points. The first is that a forensic medical report cannot be obtained in a police building: a report a doctor is made to write after being summoned to the police station counts as having been produced under pressure and is invalid; for this reason they were taken to forensic medicine in groups. The second is that in Turkey proceedings cannot be brought directly against a police officer — until permission to investigate is issued by the governor's office, the prosecutor's office cannot look at the file.
How that night was conveyed as a "provocation" is dealt with under a separate heading: The Claim That They Staged a Prayer Provocation in Adana. For the comparison discussed in those same days: The "He Compared Turkey to East Turkestan" Claim.