Anger at Killing of Bystander During Protest in Turkey

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/world/europe/anger-at-killing-of-bystander-during-protest-in-turkey.html

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One day after a bystander was shot to death as he attended a funeral near a protest in Istanbul, there was criticism Friday on social networks in Turkey over the pace of the investigation into his death.

According to Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News, the prosecutor assigned to the case waited 27 hours to visit the crime scene and inspect the bloodstained pavement where the mourner, Ugur Kurt, was fatally wounded on Thursday. Mr. Kurt, 30, was shot as the police chased protesters who had hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at them past the place of worship in the city’s Okmeydani district where the funeral of an elderly woman was taking place.

Members of the @140journos collaborative journalism project and Metin Cihan, a teacher, shared images on Twitter of the site where Mr. Kurt was shot being protected as the community waited for the arrival of the prosecutor.

When the investigators did arrive, Hurriyet reported, at least one officer was attacked by the crowd, which had been forced to delay Mr. Kurt’s funeral at the same location.

Later in the day, the blood was finally cleaned from the paving stones, video posted on Vine by a Turkish network of citizen journalists showed.

When Mr. Kurt’s funeral finally began, his coffin, draped with the shirt of the Istanbul soccer club Fenerbahce, was carried past hundreds of mourners.

Anger at the killing was fueled by security-camera footage published by the Turkish newspaper Yon Haber, which showed that Mr. Kurt was not involved in the clashes between protesters and the police while standing outside a cemevi, a place where members of the Alevi Muslim minority congregate.

Adil Sahin, an official of the Okmeydani cemevi, told The Guardian that he witnessed the clashes that led to the shooting. “I saw two protesters throw a Molotov cocktail” at a police vehicle, he said. “Then someone got out ... and opened fire. Ugur immediately dropped to the floor and started bleeding from the head.”

Hurriyet Daily News reported that 20 Istanbul police officers had been ordered to surrender their guns, as investigators tried to determine who was responsible for the shooting.