Two weeks ago, a group of peaceful protesters were by members of the security detail attending Turkish strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Raw Story reported in the days after that video showed Erdogan looking on calmly as his thugs assaulted the group of demonstrators. The New York Times said Friday that analysis of five different videos shot of the incident, when pieced together, show that Erdogan gave his goons the order to use violence.
The Times tracked the movements and actions of 24 men shown in the videos, all members of Erdogan's entourage who "kicked people lying on the ground and put a woman in a chokehold just a mile from the White House. They outnumbered the protesters nearly two to one."
In one video, Erdogan's head of security, Musin Kose, confers with the president, then speaks into his earpiece and rushes in to attack the protesters with a number of other bodyguards.
One guard grabbed 26-year-old protester Ceren Borazan by the throat and slammed her to the ground.
“He was saying ‘You are dead,’” Borazan told the Times. “I felt so awful. As a woman, as an American, as a Kurd. Right now I don’t even feel safe here.”
The thugs would single out a protester and gang up on them. Sayid Reza Yasa was thrown to the ground and kicked in the face by multiple men.
"The identities of these men are unclear," said the Times. "But Turkey’s state-owned news wire, Anadolu Agency, which filmed the violence, reported that 'the president’s security detail and Turkish police' were involved in the fight."
President Donald Trump has not addressed the attack on U.S. citizens and has maintained a collegial relationship with Erdogan. The Turkish embassy dismissed the brawl as "self defense," saying the protesters brought the violence on to themselves by "aggressively provoking" pro-Erdogan demonstrators gathered to welcome the Turkish president.
Watch the combined videos, embedded below:
