It has come to light that one of the racists who attacked HDP Deputy Co-chair Aysel Tuğluk’s mother Hatun Tuğluk’s funeral and caused the buried body to be removed from the grave, Murat Alp, has a photograph taken with Minister of Interior Affairs Süleyman Soylu in the police station.

According to Gerçek Gündem’s article, the racist attacker named Murat Alp posted his photograph taken with Minister Süleyman Soylu in the police station on Facebook with the caption “the king of men, our Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu”.

When Hatun Tuğluk lost her life, she was buried in the Incek Cemetery in Batıkent, Ankara on September 13 as per her will, but a fascist group attacked the funeral chanting racist slogans under police protection.

The racist group chanted “Allah aqbar” and “We don’t want terrorist funerals here”, “We don’t want Armenian funerals here”, “We will dig the body up if you bury here”. The family removed the buried body from the grave to be taken to Dersim and buried there.

At the time of the funeral, Soylu called the HDP MPs and said, “Don’t take the body away, bury it again in the same cemetery.” But Soylu’s photograph with the attacker that surfaced later on show that this attack was organized.

Soylu made a statement after the protests against the racist attack and claimed: “We have launched the necessary administrative and legal inquiries, the necessary detentions are underway.” Soylu had said detentions continued and 7 people were detained, later to be released in the prosecutor’s office, and 9 people were unable to be found.

The Ankara Governorate tried to make light of the attack and claimed a “group of 20-25 people attempted to tease”.

Deputy Prime Minister and Government Spokesperson Bekir Bozdağ said: “This is a very ugly incident. It is disrespectful and disproportionate. A behaviour incompatible with our traditions and beliefs.”

In a television program he attended last night, Erdoğan did not condemn the attack, and only said: “Accepting such an incident has no place in our religion. As you know, the administrative and legal procedure has been started.”

The photograph Minister of Interior Affairs Süleyman Soylu had taken with the racist attacker was reminiscent of the photograph Hrant Dink’s murderer Ogün Samast had taken with the police officers in the station in front of a Turkish flag in 2007.