'Torture is no longer in the basement of the police stations, but on the street' 2019-08-28 10:13:13 VAN - HDP's Murat Sarısaç, drawing attention to the violent police intervention in the 'trustee' protests in Van, stating that the police are torturing people on the streets, said: "Torture is no longer in the basement of the police stations, but on the street."   People have been on the streets for 10 days to protest the appointment of a trustee to the Van Metropolitan Municipality. The police intervened in all the actions since the first day and battered a number of people, including the People's Democratic Party (HDP) MP's and detained many people.      HDP Van Deputy Murat Sarisac, who took part in the actions, evaluated the events.     Sarısaç emphasizing that the practices AKP put into effect are far worse than those people have been through in September 12, 1980, said: "The process he started by saying 'No tolerance to torture', ended up in a place where the whole country is being tortured. Thousands of people are in prison. Even the smallest and peaceful of protests lands you up in jail. People are being arrested and getting tortured. The most obvious example was the images of Fırat Koç during the 4-5 days of the protests. Fırat Koç is proven to be suffering from schizophrenia with reports. The police have the authority to hit and torture him so cruelly that he is almost tortured to death. He does this very comfortably, not in the basement of the police station, but out on the street where everyone can see. Those police officers count on the system of impunity in Turkey. And they count on the fact that he who tortures is Kurdish and no one will raise their voices for the Kurdish and tortures people in the busiest street in Van in broad day light."