By Anja Hotopp, reporting from Berlin

Prison threat 4-12 years. Under this headline news agencies in Turkey report of a new scandal in the Turkish justice sector. A new case against the Kurdish musician Ferhat Tunç and his friend from Germany, İsmail Özen, has been opened, whereas the case according to several media sources and the singer should have opened against the police for brutality.

Tunç is one of the best selling protest musicians of his country. But popularity does not protect him against police harassment on the Bosporus. So far, six court cases are pending against Tunç, now followed by the seventh. There seems to be no end to the repression and harassment that the singer faces in his home country. Last year alone, he was arrested twice.

Interrogated and beaten
The most recent case stems from 24 December 2008 when Ferhat Tunç was arrested while he was having lunch at a restaurant in Istanbul because a friend of his, İsmail Özen, who joined him for the lunch, could not present his identity papers to police as they were searching the restaurant.

The papers were in a car, parked only a few minutes walk away from the restaurant. Rather than accompanying İsmail Özen and Ferhat Tunç — who are both German citizens — to the car, approximately 30 civil police officers arrested them and brought them to a nearby police station.

Ferhat Tunç and his companion were taken to the police station handcuffed for a ‘health review’. According to Ferhat Tunç, he and his friend had to spend the night in the police custody, where they, according to Tunç, were abused and beaten during the interrogations. The next day both were released.

During the night at the police station Ferhat Tunç heard the loud screams of his friend. They could be heard from the top floor of the police building to the basement. He asked the police indignantly:“Are we in the mountains here? So why are you beating that young man?” [The statement about the mountains refers to the brutality of Turkish military in Kurdish mountain region — something which is generally censored in the Turkish public sphere].

Filed a complaint
Ferhat Tunç has already long been in the spotlight of the Turkish security agencies. In March 2008, he was the target of a violent ‘pick-up’ by armored security forces at 06:00 in the morning. Six police officers from Istanbul entered the house where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Under the indictment of having ‘insulted’ and ‘resisted the police’ the most recent court case was opened against Ferhat Tunç in Istanbul on 9 June 2009. The persecutor demanded between four and 12 years imprisonment for his ‘harassment against the police’.

Although Ferhat Tunç filed a complaint against four officers involved in the socalled ‘ID check’ at the restaurant last December, no procedure has been opened. Ferhat Tunç charged the police for violence, because of the kicks and blows he and his friend received.

In the court Ferhat Tunç and his friend raised the question why they and not the policemen were the accused. In order to prove their innocence, they requested the court to review the security camera videos of a school, which happened to be on Istanbul’s Istiklal Caddesi pedestrian street. The cameras would reveal police brutality during the arrest, they said.

“A civilian not able to present an ID-card should never be treated in this way by the police. No one should be treated in such a way, no matter what,” said Ferhat Tunç to the press.

The policemen involved in the incident, Kazim Urun, Muhammet Fatih Karaburç, Necati ve Hüseyin and Yıldız Samli participated in the opening proceedings.

New album
Ferhat Tunç who frequently tours Germany will perform at the forthcoming celebration of ‘20 years of twinning Istanbul-Berlin’ and the Festival ‘Music & Politics’.

“I have now been working more than two years on my next album — but because of the court proceedings, accusations, threats and censorship, I was only able to finish it recently. These proceedings hinder me in my work as an artist — physically and mentally,” explained Ferhat Tunç.

But he he says he will not give up. Ferhat Tunç wants to remain strong and active for a social change in Turkey.