A vehicle with a Mersin license plate was stopped in Muğla’s Ortaca and Seydikemer areas on October 4 and the seven people in the vehicle were battered, stripped naked, forced to the ground and photographed. The photographs started circulating on social media. Immediately after this, on October 5, allegations surfaced that five people lost their lives in clashes in the Köyceğiz countryside and that the deceased and the detained people were “PKK members”.

HDP İzmir MP Ertuğrul Kürkçü submitted a written inquiry to the Parliament to be referred to the Ministry of Interior Affairs regarding this incident on which no official statement has been made.

“COULD BE AN EXECUTION”

Kürkçü said the seven people detained on the first day were cruelly subjected to strip searches and added:

“We suspect the people subjected to this strip search could be executed later on. According to information I have received, the two incidents are unrelated. The people who have been strip searched and exposed are in custody. But their identities were not made public. The identities of the people in Köyceğiz aren’t known either.

This doesn’t seem to me as a sincere security issue. We have serious doubt about whether people detained in Seydiker were really PKK members. I don’t think they are. The people detained in Köyceğiz are people who work there. I see this completely as an attack against Kurds and a cruel approach. I believe these people are Kurds who live and work in the region. This is a kind of threat, an intimidation tactic. A warning to people who live in the area. But I can’t figure out why. Why not somewhere else? That is what I don’t understand.”