Turkey passes bill allowing over 21,000 neighbourhood watch guards to use firearms, stop vehicles, carry out ID checks and conduct body searches
A “beckci” or neighbourhood watchman distributes cash support in Edirne as part of Turkey's social support programme initiated during the Covid-19 pandemic. April 20, 2020.
Turkey’s parliament on Thursday approved a government-proposed bill that will grant neighbourhood watchmen powers that are almost on par with the country’s police force. The bill passed overnight with backing from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party and its political ally the Nationalist Movement Party or MHP, despite opposition parties’ concerns that the legislation will empower an underqualified force.to use force. The bill allows the more than 21,000 neighbourhood guards, which now also include women, to use firearms, stop vehicles, carry out ID checks and conduct body searches.
They also recovered 4, 817 people who had gone missing and handed judgements against 129,658 people in the same period. The main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and two other opposition parties, voted against the proposal, calling it a "morality police".
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