UPDATE: www.france24.com/en… <big>June 1 — Anti-femicide group goes on trial in Turkey A prominent Turkish anti-femicide campaign group went on trial on Wednesday accused of activity against law and morals, with several hundred demonstrators rallying outside Istanbul's main court in protest.
Istanbul (AFP)
Prosecutors had filed a lawsuit in April against We Will Stop Femicide Platform, one of the country's leading feminist organisations. … We Will Stop Femicide Platform has been campaigning against the murder and abuse of women since its foundation in 2010.
Group representative Nursen Inal slammed the trial, saying it was politically motivated. "We believe this court case is an attack against women's struggle for their rights..."
...The association was a vocal critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decision last year to pull Turkey out of the Istanbul Convention, which requires countries to set up laws aimed at preventing and prosecuting violence against women. Social conservatives in Turkey claim the convention promotes homosexuality and threatens traditional family values.
We Will Stop Femicide Platform says 160 women have been killed in Turkey this year and 423 in 2021, with many murders committed by family members. "We are under pressure from the government because we publicise, name by name, each and every woman's murder," Inal said. "This contradicts the government's thesis which says women's murder is on the decline…."
...The hearing adjourned on Wednesday and will resume on October 5….
</small>More reportage from int’l press.</small>
<small>ORIGINAL POST May 31</small> Turkey’s We Will Stop Femicides Platform is fighting for its life, indicted on charges stemming from its opposition to increasing violence against and murder of women — Al-Monitor (no paywall but registration may be required):
Turkey’s opposition politicians, bar associations and rights groups are set to make a joint show of force in front of Istanbul’s main courthouse on June 1 to protest the lawsuit that threatens to shutter Turkey’s oldest and most vocal anti-femicide group.
The We Will Stop Femicides Platform, which provides legal advice and advocacy [on both staff and volunteer basis] to women who need protection from violence, is fighting for survival as it faces half a dozen charges that range from “undermining the family” to “insulting the president.” ,,, The indictment, seen by Al-Monitor, cites complaints that date back nearly six years and claim that the platform has deviated from its aims in a way that violates Turkish law and morality.
The public prosecutor calls for the closure of the award-winning nongovernmental association, which has more than 700 members and a wide network of collaborators and volunteers. The platform was founded 12 years ago after 17-year-old Munevver Karabulut was killed and cut to pieces by her boyfriend. The platform’s online tally, updated daily to count the women who fall victim to domestic violence and what it calls suspicious deaths, tells a very different story from what the government agencies share. It reports that there have been 159 femicides so far this year. Last year, it recorded 280 femicides and 217 suspicious deaths….
wikipedia.org...Femicide_in_Turkey (note: femicide is considered underreported worldwide — stated figures therefore fall far short of actualities):
Femicide in Turkey is murders in which women are killed for reasons related to their social roles, such as being killed on the grounds of "honor cleansing"[1] [among other] acts of violence against women in Turkey.[2] The number of femicides has increased significantly in Turkey in the 2000s, compared to previous years. In 2019 alone, 474 women were killed...[the highest report number across the preceding 10 years].[3][4] According to the annual report of the "We Will Stop Femicide Platform", 300 women were murdered by men in 2020, and 171 women were found suspiciously dead.[5] Between 2010 and 2019, the number of femicides decreased only in 2011, the year the Istanbul Convention was signed.[5]
Among the main justifications put forward by criminals to normalize their crimes are; women's demand for separation, honor, deception, jealousy, and more.[6]
After 1950, poets created a new understanding of poetry by focusing on femicide and violence against women in their poems. In their poems, they stated that ignoring a woman and making her unhappy are also equivalent to death.[42] In one of the poets, Edip Cansever's poem entitled Watering the Flowers, femicide takes place in the following lines:
A woman in the Izmir bazaar
A woman in broad daylight
Who knows her night, who does not know her underclothes
Who knows her lips, who does not know how to be kissed
Having children but no children
A woman in broad daylight
Shot in three places with a pistol”-
— E. Cansever (Çiçekleri Sulasan), (Watering the Flowers)
In 2019, Hatice Meryem deals with the social background of femicides by considering socio-cultural and political foundations in her book, Where to Start Killing a Woman?. In a critique in Birikim, Onur Tüm commented on the book as "a well thought-out, perhaps the first text on femicide in Turkish literature".[43]
Elçin Poyrazlar, in her novel The Mantolu Kadın (2018), tells the story of a woman who was subjected to domestic violence by her husband and the solidarity story of a woman who was forced into an unwanted marriage at a very young age,[44] In her novel Ecel Çiçekleri (2021), she dealt with the issue of femicide by telling the story of a female commissioner investigating female murders.[45]
The protagonist of Zeynep Kaçar's novel, Alone, published in 2021, turned into a character who avenges the murdered women by pretending to commit suicide by the order of the sheikh of the cult, and mentioned the names of women who were victims of femicides committed in Turkey in the past years and caused public outrage.[46]
….
Femicide has been dealt with especially by female artists in Turkey and has been the subject of contemporary art creations…..