Pro/Anti-Erdoğan Demonstrators fight in DC

[T-123456]

Some protesters appear to have responded to being attacked by fighting back, advancing against their attackers into the street. Police separated those, as well as the dark-suits who still remained in the circle attacking protesters.

Hmm, not all the people attacking the protesters wore dark suits; at least one was in a dark polo and appeared to be taking orders from the dark-suits. He was separated to the residence side of the circle along with the suits. Maybe a provacateur?

The dark-suit who casually kicked the protester who was down and unresisting on the circle side makes an especially bad impression.

Come on man,the blue t-shirt guy was almost across the street on the Turkish side,what was he doing over there?
He was attacking a Turkish guy and thats why the rest jumped in.
He should have stayed on the other side where the rest of the protestors were,he started all of this.
The footage shows it,what more proof do you need?
This is not about Erdogan,its about who started it.
The Turkish security shouldnt have gone full tilt but the DC police is to blame for not controling the blue t-shirt guy and letting him cross the street.
Security was my business so,i know what im talking about(did security for Turkish politicians and singers in the 90s in Germany).

 

[Solomon2]

Come on man,the blue t-shirt guy was almost across the street on the Turkish side,what was he doing over there?

Wish we had more of the video but of course the police were there in force and saw what the camera didn't.

The Turkish security shouldnt have gone full tilt -

The Turkish security guys didn't lose it; they kicked less with rage than with skill and calmly went around kicking the protesters who were down and curled up in fetal positions.

- but the DC police is to blame for not controling the blue t-shirt guy and letting him cross the street.

The Turks had to advance through the police line to get him, so no.

 

[-SINAN-]

You deny the Armenian genocide?

We don't deny, we reject such a baseless claim.

 

[T-123456]

The Turkish security guys didn't lose it; they kicked less with rage than with skill and calmly went around kicking the protesters who were down and curled up in fetal positions.

Take a better look,you dont kick people laying on the ground,some of them even kicked two women laying on the ground which is a no-go.

The Turks had to advance through the police line to get him, so no.

Again,yes because the line should have been stable so that it couldnt have been broken,the police was weak.

"enemy of my enemy is my friend?"

Yup,there are many Armenian members at PKK.

 

[Solomon2]

Security was my business so,i know what im talking about(did security for Turkish politicians and singers in the 90s in Germany).

Did such "security" involve not just protection but attacking political enemies, as happened here?

From the D.C. police perspective it was a melee, very difficult to tell the Turks in the protection detail from suited onlookers, especially with the calm demeanor of the thugs. But the Turks knew each other; it looks very much like a controlled attack with deliberate purpose.

It was not anything I recognize as protection. Do you?

Security was my business so,i know what im talking about(did security for Turkish politicians and singers in the 90s in Germany).

You may be interested in this, then: the Turkish guards were stationed almost directly over the Letelier and Moffitt Memorial.

That's a two-foot high memorial to a former ambassador and his colleague who were blown up here by a car bomb in 1976, courtesy of another dictator who brooked no political opposition against his regime.

 

[313ghazi]

You still missed the point about the brutality part. You don't attack protesters, especially in a foreign country. If Netanyahu visited the US and his bodyguards beat protesters against him would you still be impressed as you were with Erdogan's bodyguards?

Clearly things got out of hand, there's no point kicking people when they're on the ground, if anything they should have secured their leader and pushed DC police to the front line.

Having said that, if Bibi and his boys wanted a rumble, i don't know about DC but they'd get one in London.

 

[T-123456]

Did such "security" involve not just protection but attacking political enemies, as happened here?

Thats just a dumb comment from your side,no need to continue with this conversation.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

Included in the police search are members of Erdogan's armed protective detail, according to two people with direct knowledge of the case. Police are working with the State Department and the Secret Service to identify people seen on videos and obtain arrest warrants even as they anticipated thorny issues involving diplomatic immunity or the special status afforded to those who guard visiting heads of state.

Special Status, is only so far depending on how aggressively the State Dept. pursues this case, probably not.

Sheridan circle is ~3 wide lanes of traffic, 1 mostly parking. You can easily see both sides coming to the middle to slug it, and when the Pro-Turkish side retreats then projectiles launched (bullhorn included).

The protesters knew the Police were going to provide safety, they never assumed that their aggressive advance would have such a result.

The Police line should have been on the Circle.

 

[Solomon2]

Thats just a dumb comment from your side,no need to continue with this conversation.

How the U.S. can hold Erdogan’s brawling guards accountable — and keep it from happening again
By Philip Bump May 17 at 5:11 PM
Play Video 2:43

Several people injured after protest outside Turkish ambassador's residence
Nearly a dozen people were injured on May 17 in a brief but violent confrontation between two groups outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence. (ANCA)

On Tuesday afternoon, a brief but violent altercation erupted outside the home of the Turkish ambassador on Washington’s Embassy Row. At least nine people were injured in the fighting. Video taken at the scene would indicate that most of the injured were protesters standing across the street from the ambassador’s residence.

At least some of those involved in causing the injuries were guards for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It’s worth noting that this is not the first time that Erdogan’s bodyguards have been implicated in harassing or assaulting people on American soil. When Erdogan visited Washington in March 2016, Turkish journalists charged his guards with verbally attacking them and, in at least one instance, kicking a journalist hard enough to make him bleed.

But the incident on Tuesday was of another scale entirely. In the video, a group of men, many in suits and wearing badges, charge into the group of demonstrators, who were protesting Erdogan’s policies in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, according to a Facebook video. Turkey’s state news agency said the security team sought to disperse the protest because D.C. “police did not heed to Turkish demands to intervene” — sensibly, since American police are expected to allow peaceful protests to continue. After the fighting begins, D.C. police are seen trying to break up the brawl but appear outnumbered.

At a news conference, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said that several of the guards involved in the melee were armed, making intervention “dicey.” He also noted that applying legal remedies might be tricky because some of those involved might have diplomatic immunity.

This raises two questions. First, to what extent can the U.S. government punish any of Erdogan’s guards who may have assaulted protesters? Second, how can the government keep this from happening, should Erdogan visit the United States again?

To answer those questions, I spoke by phone with David Stewart, professor at Georgetown University Law School, and Ruth Wedgwood, professor of international law and diplomacy at Johns Hopkins University. Both made one point clear: Diplomatic immunity was not a license to assault people on American soil and get away with it.

“Immunity is, in fact, a pretty limited protection for very specific purposes of government business,” Stewart said. Those with diplomatic immunity are granted that protection by the government out of its self-interest: We want our diplomats protected from spurious legal charges while they’re overseas. But we expect that legitimate concerns about illegal behavior by our diplomats will result in ramifications, just as we can hold accountable those with diplomatic immunity who behave improperly in the United States.

How? Although prosecutors in Washington can’t arrest members of Erdogan’s security detail if they have certain types of immunity, those individuals can be charged with any crimes they have committed — meaning that if those people come back to the United States in any nonprotected capacity, they can be arrested at that point. We can also expel those guards from the country, something that President Barack Obama did in December to punish Russian agents involved in hacking. We can also prevent them from coming back in.

The type of immunity that the guards might hold isn’t clear. The ambassador has full immunity. If the guards involved in Tuesday’s fracas are attached to the embassy, they may have similarly robust immunity, including “personal inviolability” — meaning they cannot be arrested or otherwise detained. If they were traveling to the United States as part of the president’s entourage — and if our government recognized those guards as being here in that context — they are covered under a similar principle of immunity. (The terms of immunity are spelled out in the Vienna Convention of 1961.)

Wedgwood notes a possible caveat: If the guards weren’t acting in their official capacity, that might change the extent to which they’re protected under immunity rules. Unsurprisingly, she was also skeptical that fighting with protesters would be considered an official act.

Police secure the street outside the Turkish Embassy during a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday in Washington. (Dave Clark/AFP/Getty Images)

Immunity covers specific activity at a specific time. Those injured in the brawl could sue the guards or the Erdogan government. If Turkey wanted to, it could prosecute the guards when they return home — immunity wouldn’t offer protection from that, although Erdogan probably would. The United States could also leverage its political power to demand that Turkey compensate those injured and provide assurances that similar incidents don’t happen again — as the United States has, at times, been forced to make up for bad behavior by our diplomats.

Which brings us to the other question: How can the United States prevent a third year of brawling Turkish guards?

There are several ways. We could identify certain individuals who were not allowed to re-enter the United States. We could constrain the number of people allowed to travel with Erdogan.

“The host nation — which is a term of art,” meaning that it is a defined phrase in international diplomacy, “has a great deal of flexibility: how many to let in, who to let in,” Wedgwood said. Erdogan can’t simply say that he is bringing a set group of people who therefore get immunity. Although the embassy itself is inviolable (though not sovereign territory), getting to that embassy requires permission from the United States.

Ultimately, the repercussions of the brawl come down to the will of the government — that is to say, the Trump administration — to decide how to address the guards’ behavior. Whether to expel the bad actors is up to the administration, as is how to constrain Erdogan in the future. D.C. police can identify the culprits in the fight, and the city can charge them with crimes, but beyond that it’s up to the executive branch.

On Wednesday, the State Department released a statement “communicating concern to the Turkish government in the strongest possible terms.” During a brief discussion with the media, press secretary Sean Spicer was asked for the president’s view.


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Glenn Thrush

✔@GlennThrush
Sean has no comment about Erdogan thugs beating up protesters in DC

2:58 PM - 17 May 2017

Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Post based in New York City

 

[CrimsonFury]

Those mountain animals should have been taunted into rushing the residence grounds (Turkish soil) and a couple of them should've been shot through the head. Damn it our government can't plan at all, next time the Turkish government should plant agitators with any crowd and have them start the fight properly..or even better to start a fight with DC police.

 

[Attila the Hun]

I guess 1.5 million people vanished, alright

1.5 million "Armenians" didn't even exist in Eastern Anatolia.
Just show me a single mass burial site of Armenians. If you can.

 

[Naara-e-Mastana]

Yea I bet Erdogan was on top of the embassy guiding his followers and security forces to 'suppress' these protesters. (sarcasm)

Maybe he put a mask and lead his guards from the front.

 

[war&peace]

If you took care to watch any of the unedited videos out there of this incident, you would clearly see Armenian-PKK provocateurs throwing bottles at the guards. US Police failed to maintain order, Turkish guards in-self defence reacted and hit out at the leaders of the provocation - ie, the ones on opposing side who bled or were cowering on the floor in the fetal position. Also this protest was not Anti-Erdogan, but Anti-Turkey, this is clear via participation of Armenians and disrespect of Turkish flag.

I haven't seen any such video so it will be great if you can share the links with us since you have seen them already.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I haven't seen any such video so it will be great if you can share the links with us since you have seen them already.

Looks like the protestors (like 20 at the most) were far outnumbered and rushed by Turkish security.

 

[war&peace]

Looks like the protestors (like 20 at the most) were far outnumbered and rushed by Turkish security.

No, not this one, the unedited version that @Combat-Master claims to have watched.