Case of woman injured by gas canister during Gezi protests dismissed despite medical report

Mesut Hasan BENLİ HÜRRİYET / ANKARA

Thousands sustained small or medium-size injuries during the constant police interventions against protests throughout June and July last year. DAILY NEWS photo

Prosecutors have dismissed all the charges in a lawsuit brought by a woman who was injured in her foot by a tear gas canister during last year’s Gezi protests in Ankara.

The decision said that “there was no evidence” that the police resorted to a disproportionate use of force, despite the plaintiff having presented a valid medical report stating that the canister caused “a slight injury that can require a simple medical intervention.”

The woman, identified as A.U.A., also underlined that she took three days medical leave a week after being injured.

“The Prosecutor’s Office has ruled a nonsuit despite the fact that I presented witnesses and asked for the other evidences to be collected in the complaint that I filed,” the plaintiff said in her objection request on March 24.

“In my application, I asked to collect the camera footage of the moment of intervention and to determine who were the police officers commissioned at the zone where the incident happened,” she added.

But the city’s police department defended the act on the grounds that the group of protesters were participating in an “illegal demonstration.”

“Riot police personnel carried out a proportionate intervention resorting to pressurized water and tear gas in order to restore public order and security after demonstrators resisted dispersing despite all the warnings,” the department had said in its defense.

The plaintiff lamented that prosecutors only took notice of the police department’s version.  

“They have considered the police department’s note as evidence,” she said.

Thousands sustained small or medium-size injuries during the constant police interventions against protests throughout June and July last year. Particularly in Ankara, protests were met with repeated police intervention.