Undercover Police Record Attendees At Remembrance Ceremony

The Erzurum National Police Department has added another level to the illegal profiling practices of the Turkish state by assigning undercover police officers to make video recordings of people attending a remembrance ceremony commemorating the Prophet Muhammad in Turkey's eastern Erzurum province.

Last weekend, the Kaynak Kültür and Damla publishing houses jointly held a remembrance ceremony commemorating the Prophet in Erzurum province. Before the ceremony started, some of those attending noticed that they were being recorded on camera by two people in what appeared to be an unmarked police car. Upon the participants' request, Mehmet Güral, the head of the organizing committee, called the police to make a complaint. When police units arrived on the scene and requested the IDs of those in the car, the men declined, and left the scene, saying they were undercover police officers on duty. On the second night of the remembrance ceremony, the recording was continued by three people in another car.

Following the incident, Güzel filed a criminal complaint against the undercover police officers with the Erzurum Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on charges of involvement in an attempt to intimidate the attendees by recording them.

Many people who had attended the ceremony gathered in front of the courthouse, where Alparslan Ekinci, cochairman of the organizing body's executive board, held a press conference on the issue. “It is so upsetting to see that those police officers were assigned to do such a reckless and meaningless task. Although there is a serious lack of security in our city, those police officers were busy at a remembrance ceremony that was the result of good intentions. On Saturday night and Sunday night, we all noticed that some people were recording the entrance of the building where we held a remembrance ceremony to commemorate the Prophet Muhammad. But we noticed that, unfortunately, the police officers who were supposed to be protecting us were actually profiling us,” Ekinci told the press.

One of the attendees at the ceremony told Today's Zaman that they were innocent, so they had nothing to be afraid of. “We attended the remembrance ceremony that night because we are simply in love with our prophet. When it comes to our beliefs, no one can intimidate us with these kinds of things. I am so glad that I attended that ceremony that night. We are not after any kind of earthly gain. It is funny to see that all those police officers were occupied with recording a bunch of harmless people who attended a religious ceremony while there are hundreds of thousands of people out there. I suggest that they don't waste any time on these kinds of meaningless things,” the attendee said.

Many attendees outside the courthouse carried placards saying, “Our crime is to be in love with the prophet," "New Turkey is an old story" and "Keep records on the terrorists, not us.”

Orhan Yıldırım (Cihan/Today's Zaman)