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It was not 'police intervention' but torture on May 1st: Lawyer Gönenç Gürkaynak emphasizes international law

The harsh intervention by police against a citizen who was pinned to the ground during the May 1st Labor and Solidarity Day demonstrations in Istanbul has drawn reactions from legal experts and human rights defenders. As images of the incident surfaced, statements from prominent lawyer Gönenç Gürkaynak revealed a striking reality: this is not a simple "police intervention"; it is clear torture as defined under international law.

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Gürkaynak emphasized that the actions seen in the footage are not merely disproportionate force, but forms of torture that pose a life-threatening risk.

He stated that by pressing a knee onto the neck of a person lying face down, both the windpipe is constricted and the diaphragm becomes unable to function due to the additional pressure applied to the back.

"In this situation, it becomes almost impossible for the person to breathe," said Gürkaynak, reminding that these practices are banned worldwide and have led to deaths in many countries, including the US, due to similar methods in the past.

"Preventing a person from breathing is not police intervention, it is torture," Gürkaynak stated, citing international conventions to which Turkey is a party and the Constitution, noting that law enforcement officers must be held accountable for such practices.

Suppressing peaceful demonstrations like May 1st with police violence violates not only fundamental rights and freedoms but also the minimum principles of the rule of law.

Here is Gürkaynak's post:

Let me explain in the simplest and clearest way why the image in this photo cannot simply be called "police intervention":

When a person is lying face down on a hard surface, their windpipe narrows and can even collapse when a knee is placed on their neck and pressure is applied with body weight. For this reason, the "knee to neck" practice is being abandoned in law enforcement practices all over the world. Deaths have occurred for this very reason in many countries, including the US. Some of these deaths have also led to extraordinary public outcry.

While this extremely dangerous practice is being carried out, if another person simultaneously presses their weight onto the back of the person on the ground and pulls their arm at an awkward angle, it leaves no room for the person's diaphragm to move downward. Thus, the person's windpipe is constricted and they are left with no room to draw breath.

If the mouth of the person on the ground is also covered in this position, it is almost impossible for this person, who is exposed to all 3 effects at once, to breathe.

Preventing a person from breathing is not police intervention; it is torture.