Lawbreakers at protests to face four years in jail : Turkey

FE Team | Published: October 22, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

ISTANBUL, Oct 21 (agencies): Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu unveiled Tuesday details of a sweeping security reform branded as repressive by critics, saying those in possession of banned objects at protests would face up to four years in jail.
The changes were first announced last week by the Islamic-rooted government following deadly protests in Istanbul and the Kurdish-majority southeast over Turkey's Syria policy.
Davutoglu said the legislation is aimed at ending the ambiguity over the use in demonstrations of "weapons of violence", including Molotov cocktails, stones and other sharp objects.
Those protestors possessing such objects-not currently regarded as a crime-will be detected and banned from entering rallies.
Police will be able to arrest those suspected of possessing such objects at a protest, and those convicted could face up to four years in jail, he added.
"Molotov cocktails are weapons of violence. If someone sets fire to ambulances, libraries, mosques or Koranic institutions by throwing Molotov cocktails... we cannot call this freedom," Davutoglu told a meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara.
He said the bill calls for stricter punishment for offenders wearing masks to conceal their identity, damaging public property, as well as resisting the police.
The detention time limit will be doubled to 48 hours, Davutoglu said.
Police will also be given greater authority to search demonstrators or their houses, without the need for "concrete evidence".
Meanwhile: "It was as if we were in the middle of a war zone," said 22-year-old drama student Aslihan Celebi as she described the scene of a violent anti-jihadist protest at Istanbul University.
The university has in the last few weeks been the centre of violent clashes between leftist students denouncing the brutality of Islamic State (IS) jihadists and the group's sympathisers.
The clashes erupted as social tensions mount in Turkey over the advance of IS, with at least 34 people killed this month in protests over the lack of action by the government against the Islamist extremists.
IS jihadists are currently battling Kurdish fighters for the Syrian town of Kobane just over the Turkish border. But so far the Turkish military has just looked on.
The first clash at the university erupted in late September when Islamist students tried to forcibly prevent left-wingers from holding an anti-IS rally.
A number of students were attacked by IS sympathisers wearing black masks and armed with clubs, meat cleavers and knives, said Aslihan, a member of FKF, the socialist group which organised the anti-IS protests.