Last night, in Alsancak, Izmir, police officers forcefully detained 2 trans individuals after telling them “you can’t sit here”.

Source: “Police brutality against trans individuals in Izmir” (“İzmir’de translara polis şiddeti”), Gözde Demirbilek, kaosgl.org, May 9, 2018, http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=25777

In Izmir, police continue to siege the Alsancak neighbourhood.  Based on the information given by the neighbourhood residents, around 23:00 law enforcement officials took 2 trans women who were sitting in a bakery on Azra Has Street (Bornova Street) to the police station; forcefully and without justification.

After the police detained these women and took their statements, they were fined and released.

The women contacted Kerem Dikmen, a lawyer from Kaos GL and told him how law enforcement officers have been putting the neighbourhood under siege, and how the police are suffocating the trans individuals living in this area.

De facto Unlawful Detention!

Kerem Dikmen pointed out that the administrative fine has become something arbitrary; he said:

“It’s an exception when the one sentenced to pay fines detained by the police, even though this is not stipulated by the law; the sanctions that are imposed on trans women are not being carried out according to the law. There is no difference in clarity by the law between penalising a car driver’s speeding crimes and a trans individual on the street. Considering that it is not necessary to go to the police station for the fine to be issued, such implementation can turn into actual unlawful detention.”

“The area under siege is where trans individuals live and work. Living and working in the same neighbourhood is natural and therefore incidents like this happen while they are shopping from stores in their own neighbourhood. It is not lawfully applicable to sentence someone to pay fines as long as there is no indicated misdemeanour crime.”