Via Middle Eastern Eye – The Turkish army has arrested a group of soldiers who were filmed beating and verbally abusing a group of young Syrian refugees who attempted to illegally cross the border, it said late on Sunday.  In a statement posted on its website, the army said that “the personnel in question were taken into custody and all administrative and judicial procedures have been immediately started against them”.

The incident, which took place on 28 July at 11am local time on the Turkish-Syrian border, was filmed by one of the soldiers. The video was widely shared on social media after being sent to someone in Germany. The video, which has not been independently verified, showed the four soldiers kicking and beating the group of young men and shouting at them in Turkish.

“Will you come to Turkey again? Be quiet man! Don’t shout,” says a soldier in the video. One soldier is seen repeatedly kicking one of the refugees on the ground. Another soldier says to one of the men “why did you bring the refugees in? Are you a smuggler?”

The refugees were deported from Turkey, after being handed to the police and having undergone a health check, the army’s statement said.

According to Turkish daily Hurriyet the four Syrians were spotted attempting to cross the border by two soldiers identified only as SB and EP.

The beatings took place at the soldiers’ outpost and were recorded by a soldier identified as YG and shared with a contact in Germany identified only as Feride A using the username “Agido Tom”, through WhatsApp on 29 July. The video shows that the soldier who filmed the beating also attacked the men. Continue reading here…