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The Istanbul Convention aims to protect women from domestic violence. Now the Turkish ruling party is debating a way out. This scandalizes many women, also due to the new cases of violence.
By Oliver Mayer-Rüth, ARD-Studio Istanbul
Rarely does anyone visit the grave of 18-year-old Ipek Er from the town of Kurukavak in southeastern Anatolia. The circumstances of his death are seen as an embarrassment in his homeland. His fate, however, is causing a sensation across the country at a time when Turkey is discussing abandoning international rules to protect women from violence.
Ipek Er succumbs to his injuries in mid-August. She tried to commit suicide with a shotgun and then spent several weeks in the hospital. The motive for the desperate act was an alleged rape by her friend Musa O .. After the crime, she went to the police and reported her boyfriend.
The judiciary briefly arrests him, but they quickly release him. Word of the case spread. The outrage on social media over the release is so great that a prosecutor has the ex-boyfriend and the gendarme arrested again. He is dishonorably dismissed from the gendarmerie. However, the judge responsible for the Arab-Kurdish city of Siirt quickly released him.
Parents defend themselves
Er’s father, Fuat, doesn’t want to accept that. Compared to the ARD he complains: “That raises a lot of questions. First of all, I’d like to speak to this judge: ‘If that had been his daughter, would his conscience have remained pure when this killer was released?'”
The fall caused a sensation until Istanbul. The former gendarme is due to appear in court in October. Ipek’s mother, Hakime Kilinc, is already concerned that the 23-year-old could go unpunished. “The rights of my daughter should not be forgotten,” he demands. “I don’t want anyone to help him. I want justice.”
A women’s organization is using Ers’s death as an opportunity to print her photo with the words “Let’s not shut up” on banners and display it at one of the regular demonstrations against violence against women in Istanbul.
Violence during demonstrations: not an isolated incident
Violence against women is daily life in Turkey. Almost every week, videos with horrible scenes are shared on social media: a man stretches and slaps a woman in public. Sometimes the victims defend themselves, sometimes they accept the torment almost immobile. Sometimes passersby get involved, sometimes they ignore what is happening.
Turkish women’s organizations counted more than 470 murders of women in 2019. Violence against women is increasing, they warn. The few independent Turkish media have recently addressed the issue more and more often because the extreme Islamic-conservative forces of the ruling AKP party want to end the so-called Istanbul Convention.
The international treaty was signed in 2011 by 13 states, including Turkey, in Istanbul and then ratified. In the following years, other countries joined. The signatory states committed themselves to preventing and combating violence against women.
Resistance from an ultra-conservative brotherhood
However, the arch-conservative Muslim brotherhood Ismailaga considers the convention to be an “attack on Islamic values” and is spreading this opinion through its Twitter account. In January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Ismailaga leader, after which pictures of the meeting were distributed.
In early July Nurman Kurtulmus, vice chairman of the AKP, called for the convention to be withdrawn. “It is incorrect to say that violence against women would increase if the Istanbul Convention was broken,” he says. “Just as you signed the agreement according to the rules, you can also rescind it.”
The outrage in women’s organizations is great. But resistance is also emerging in the AKP women’s organization. It is said from party circles that Kurtulmus’ demand must first be discussed internally in all the details and weigh how Erdogan’s traditional voters, in particular, might react to a withdrawal from the convention.
Much could depend on Erdogan’s daughter, Sümeyye. She is vice president of the women’s organization Kadem, known for portraying an Islamic-conservative image of women. But it is also repeatedly said that the issue of violence against women is a red line there: Sümeyye Erdogan has an influence on her father. It has not yet been decided that the extreme Islamic conservative wing of the AKP will prevail over the Istanbul Convention.
You can also see this report on Europamagazin, Sunday at 12:45 pm on Das Erste.
