{"id":41958,"date":"2019-12-16T07:22:14","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T07:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41958"},"modified":"2019-12-16T07:22:14","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T07:22:14","slug":"turkish-women-decry-state-inaction-in-the-face-of-femicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41958","title":{"rendered":"Turkish women decry state inaction in the face of femicide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nLONDON: Late on Tuesday last week, 20-year-old art student Ceren Ozdemir left her ballet class in the Black Sea province of Ordu to start her walk home.<\/p>\n

\nShe was followed. The man keeping up with her went undetected. When Ozdemir reached\u00a0her front door, he stabbed her several times. Left to die in the street, she later succumbed to\u00a0her injuries in hospital.<\/p>\n

\nThe next day, her killer \u2014 who has a dozen previous convictions, including robbery and assault \u2014 was arrested at a bus stop. He is now facing state prosecution.<\/p>\n

\nWomen\u2019s rights organization We Will Stop Femicide said that Ozdemir\u2019s death was the 430th registered murder of a woman in Turkey this year.<\/p>\n

\nThe group \u2014 widely considered to be a trusted source on violence against women in the country \u2014 claims that 440 women were killed last year, with 2019 set to beat that unwelcome record.<\/p>\n

\nIn this decade, the group says that more than 2,600 women have been killed, most of them at the\u00a0hands of their partners.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\nTurkish women and rights activists are furious. Their anger is directed not only at male murderers and their accomplices, but also at the authorities, which they accuse of inaction\u00a0and of fostering a culture that ignores the plight of women.<\/p>\n

\nOn Nov. 25, a week before Ozdemir\u2019s murder, 2,000 women gathered in Istanbul on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.<\/p>\n

\nThey were forced away by the police, who used plastic bullets and tear gas to disperse the\u00a0crowd.<\/p>\n

\nOn Dec. 8, hundreds assembled again in Istanbul\u2019s Kadikoy district to protest violence against women.<\/p>\n

\nThey gathered to join a coordinated international movement performing a dance and song called \u201cA rapist in your path.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe event, first created by Chilean group Las Tesis, set social media ablaze after its debut\u00a0performance in Santiago, Chile, went viral.<\/p>\n

\nThe Istanbul police once again used tear gas to disrupt the rally and deny women the opportunity to deliver their performance.<\/p>\n

\nThe EFE news agency reported that after demonstrators started to perform the Spanish- language song in Turkish, police snatched their megaphones.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
Fidan Ataselim, below, the leader of We Will Stop Femicide: \u201cThe law should be applied properly in order to keep women alive.\u201d (Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\nAmong those arrested was the leader of We Will Stop Femicide, Fidan Ataselim. One protester told EFE: \u201cWe came to scream against patriarchal violence and they have attacked\u00a0us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe group, which has branches across the country and around the world, released a statement\u00a0demanding that a \u201cminister of women\u201d be established.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe president, the prime minister and the leaders of all political parties should condemn\u00a0violence against women,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n

\nClearly, Turkish women are disappointed with the political response to the spate of killings.<\/p>\n

\nIn August, after a woman\u2019s murder was captured on video \u2014 sparking nationwide outrage \u2014\u00a0President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he would support any parliamentary act that\u00a0would restore the death penalty.<\/p>\n

\nBut We Will Stop Femicide said: \u201cPractices such as \u2018capital punishment\u2019 … are human rights\u00a0violations and (this group) rejects them as possible solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe filmed murder of Emine Bulut, 38, whose throat was slit by her ex-husband in front of her daughter, led more than just Erdogan to wake up to the problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIstanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu promptly blamed \u201cmale violence\u201d for her death. Major football club Besiktas held a minute\u2019s silence in memory of Bulut.<\/p>\n

\nAnd despite Erdogan\u2019s death-penalty propositions not being received positively by campaigners, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said in September that his ministry would do\u00a0anything to halt the violence.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf it will save just one person, if it prevents one child, one woman from dying or facing violence, we will change not just a law but even the constitution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nAnkara drove forward the ratification of a 2011 Council of Europe accord, the Istanbul Convention, which prioritizes gender equality. Turkey also passed laws in 2012 designed to\u00a0protect women from violence.<\/p>\n

\n

\n\u201cMen cannot accept that Turkey is a modern country where women have rights. Some of these men don\u2019t even think we have the right to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nFidan Ataselim, general secretary of We Will Stop Femicide<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nBut in a 2018 report, the Council of Europe said that the cause of violence against women in Turkey was gender inequality, and called on the country to remove traditions that lead to their\u00a0practice.<\/p>\n

\nMany Turkish Islamist commentators and public figures who support socially conservative\u00a0laws have opposed the Istanbul Convention, arguing that equality is a corrosive influence in society.<\/p>\n

\nIn an interview with Reuters, Islamist writer Abdurrahman Dilipak said that restraining orders and laws for the protection of women fuel divorces and violence.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWandering among us is a devil with an angel\u2019s face which is organizing conflict, not peace, within the family,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe family is collapsing. With an international agreement (the Istanbul Convention), a trap is being set up against women, men, children and the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBut campaigners believe that the devils are not the laws designed to protect them, but the men killing their mothers, sisters, daughters, cousins and friends.<\/p>\n

\nFidan Ataselim, We Will Stop Femicide\u2019s general secretary, said: \u201cMen cannot accept that Turkey is a modern country where women have rights. Some of these men don\u2019t even think we have the right to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBut hope is not lost. Ataselim believes that with the right legal campaigns, Turkish society can successfully fight back against the scourge of domestic violence and sexist killings.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s possible to stop femicide. The Istanbul Convention has to be applied effectively to strengthen and protect women. When it was signed in 2011, we saw a decrease in femicide figures,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have to take this path. The law should be applied properly in order to keep women alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON: Late on Tuesday last week, 20-year-old art student Ceren Ozdemir left her ballet class in the Black Sea province of Ordu to start her walk home. She was followed. The man keeping up with her went undetected. When Ozdemir reached\u00a0her front door, he stabbed her several times. Left to die in the street, she…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}