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anti-Erdogan, D.C., freedom of speech, melee, pro-democracy, protesters, Turkish Embassy, Washington

President @realDonaldTrump can you please speak up for freedom of expression and right of peaceful demonstration. #FreedomOfSpeech pic.twitter.com/vNQAmXReN0

— Ceren Borazan (@CerenBorazan) May 17, 2017

VOA – 5/17/2017

Turkish President Erdogan lies to his loyal subjects in Turkey — why should his subalterns not do the same here?

CNN’s coverage of Tuesday’s melee notes Turkish embassy claims that groups affiliated with the PKK, a once militant organization much changed from its Soviet communist aligned heyday in the late 1970s, provoked Turkish Americans eager to greet President Erdogan, but then it goes on to state, ” . . . that account differs greatly from the sequence of events described by protesters and video captured by the Voice of America Turkish service . . . .”

Among those assaulted were two American Secret Service agents and a Washington, D.C. Metropolitan police officers, who was injured.

From Mother Jones‘s coverage:

As the violence broke out, videos from the confrontation quickly emerged on social media appearing to show Erdogan’s security detail using force on protesters, even kicking multiple people in the face, while DC police officials attempted to intervene. NBC confirmed on Wednesday that Erdogan’s bodyguards were the ones beating protesters.

The Turkish embassy did not respond to requests for comment.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/bodyguards-turkish-president-violently-clash-protesters-dc

The thugs in suits retreated to Turkish Embassy grounds, which by convention and law is treated as sovereign and therefore safe from invasive pursuit.

A State Department official said the Turkish security that was involved appears to be a mix of Embassy and President Erdogan’s security.

vvvvhttp://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/turkey-erdogan-incident/

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/bodyguards-turkish-president-violently-clash-protesters-dc – 5/17/2017

Casting aside his predecessor’s concerns about human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech in another nation, Donald Trump lavished praise on another autocratic foreign leader on Tuesday, calling it “a great honor to welcome the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to the White House.”

Just hours after Trump focused his remarks on “the exemplary valor of the Turkish soldier,” however, Erdogan’s presidential bodyguards were caught on video punching and kicking protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/17/trump-praises-erdogan-whose-bodyguards-assault-protesters-washington/ – 5/17/2017.

The footage shows local police shoving not only demonstrators but several men in suits. One of the men in suits can be seen kicking a woman who had already been knocked to the ground. Witnesses reportedly said that the protesters were demanding that a pro-Kurdish lawmaker, Selahattin Demirtas, be released from prison in Turkey.

http://www.snopes.com/2017/05/17/protesters-attacked-erdogan/ – 5/17/2017. Link added by BackChannels.

Posted to YouTube 5/16/2017

U.S. officials strongly criticized the Turkish government Wednesday as video appeared to show its president’s security forces pushing past police and violently breaking up a protest outside their diplomatic residence in Washington.

Attacking the small group of protesters with their fists and feet, men in dark suits and others were recorded repeatedly kicking one woman as she lay curled on a sidewalk. Another wrenches a woman’s neck and throws her to the ground. A man with a bullhorn is repeatedly kicked in the face. In all, nine people were hurt.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hurt-arrested-altercation-turkish-embassy-dc-47460260 – 5/17/2017.

The jihadist dictator Erdoğan is bent on expanding his powers both inside and outside Turkey. Erdoğan’s temper recently flared against Europe when several European governments refused “to allow his ministers to rally Turkish expatriates.” He also declared that “Europe is collapsing…Europe will pay for what they have done in humiliating and oppressing Turks”; and in response to a European headscarf ban in the workplace, he accused Europe of starting “a clash between the cross and the crescent.”

Now he is so bold as to allow his thugs to behave violently on American soil.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/05/nine-injured-as-erdogans-bodyguards-violently-attack-kurdish-protesters-in-dc – 5/18/2017.