Berrin Sönmez
bsonmez@gazeteduvar.com.tr
ALL ARTICLES
Women's rights and gender equality as one of the world's fault lines
It is women's responsibility to put the world back on the trajectory of gender equality when it is running wildly against equality. We will continue our common struggle against the climate of war and conflict, against fascist governments, there is no other way. We will win the struggle for equality in the end, but it seems that it will only take some time.
Importance of International Women's Day for religious Muslim women
The women who take to the streets are not speaking against religion, they are objecting to patriarchy. The women who object to the amendment of the Civil Code with their religious identity are not taking a stance against religion. They are fighting to break the patriarchal tradition that establishes male domination. I think that religious women should at least remember the first four verses of Surah Al-Mujadila and become stakeholders in the struggle for women's equality.
Women and girls as incubators
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in Turkey doesn’t recognize women as sovereign individuals and as a subject of law, but as the ‘complementary’ to men. It decorates this approach with abstract notions like conscience and compassion, and gives religious explanations to trick the public. Women and girls are considered incubators. When they refuse to agree, social engineering is imposed.
A new tool for AKP to restrict LGBTIQ+ community?
A new committee was founded at the Turkish Parliament recently which has a mandate to research violence against women. It seems, however, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is poised to use the new committee to further their anti-LGBTIQ+ agenda. During the last meeting of the committee an AKP deputy revealed that intention by suggesting to contact film producers in order to restrict the visibility of LGBTI+ people on screen.
Imaginary coup threat and the Istanbul Convention
The “imaginary threat” of a coup against President Erdoğan, is being used as an instrument to cover up the seizure of women’s rights and their bid for equality that were guaranteed by the Istanbul Convention. Apparently, the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention was not the cover for the economic crisis but its actual reason according to former AKP founder and DEVA leader Ali Babacan.
Turkey's political opposition and the Istanbul Convention
The Istanbul Convention was ratified via a unanimous vote in the Turkish parliament in 2011 and now the decision of a single person has overruled such parliamentary consensus. The Istanbul Convention is an example of women’s power to transform the world. Thus, the government has cleared the way for a plethora of human rights abuses with a single swipe of a pen. What a pity that the opposition parties have also opted for violating the rights of Kurds and women in order to increase their power.
Muslim feminism’s simultaneous struggle
It is no secret that the Turkey’s government and society do very little to ensure the safety and equality of women. This is exemplified in those Muslim women who were targeted for their participation in the Boğaziçi University resistance movement. It is Muslim feminism’s unending ordeal that they must struggle simultaneously against both the conservatism in which they live and the opposition mentality that assumes they are anomalies and advocates of traditionalism.
Individual freedoms exist at the core of Muslim theology
The principle of laicism has existed in the Turkish constitution since the early days of the Republic. However, recently, the Chief Imam of the Ayasofya Mosque, Mehmet Boynukalın demanded that the principle of laicism be removed from the constitution entirely. As President Erdoğan talks increasingly about the necessity of a new constitution, a discussion of the history and necessity of this principle is increasingly relevant.
Leyla Güven, Turkish judiciary’s first ‘maternal racist’
The crime invented in the case of Kurdish politician Leyla Güven’s indictment is quite surprising. Güven has been charged with giving “speeches based on ‘maternally racist’ content.” The judiciary has indicated in this indictment that even the concept of a matrilineal society can be considered hate speech. But what incentive is there for this? Why Güven? The crux of the issue is that the person being charged is both a woman and Kurdish.
TİHEK became spokesperson of misogyny in Turkey
The Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey (TİHEK), which has become the spokesperson for misogyny and an anti-Civil Code stance should return to its basic duties. The head of TİHEK, Süleyman Arslan, who escalates this same rhetoric on his own personal account, should be removed from office.
Playing children’s games with Erdoğan's Director of Communications
Women in Turkey tried to directly communicate with President Erdoğan and convey their demands through the Presidential Communications Center. In a period of 30 days, from the replies we received, we understand that our demands were not sent to the president.
Will women’s rights be submitted for the approval of the enemies of women?
It should be asked to President Erdoğan, “Those religious interpretations that you found malevolent five years ago are now praiseworthy. Is that the reason the Istanbul Convention is now being debated? Will the right to live and women’s rights be submitted for the approval of the enemies of women?
Turkish women quarantined at the scene of the murder
Male violence is rising. Unfortunately, in quarantine days, the fight against violence has been made much more ineffective than before. It is not at all difficult, after all, to imagine the problems created by a perpetrator and a victim of violence staying in the same house.
A document of shame rather than a bill
The child sexual abusers, sexual offenders and other offenders of violence against women are within the scope of the amnesty which is in front of the Turkish Parliament. Those who have used their right to thought and expression are outside the scope of the amnesty. I don’t know if one can imagine a bigger shame than this bill for the parliament.
The charity work that brought AKP to power will also bring it down
In the recent Elazığ earthquake in eastern Turkey, the aid brought by pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) municipalities were turned down. This is a clear sign that we have not moved an inch forward in our humanitarian journey. Stories about Kızılay are very much the same as they were years ago; there seems to be no change in terms of institutional deterioration, as you can see. Everything people were fed up with on that day in 1999 is now being repeated in the hands of AKP. If certain people assume popular support is continuing like it did after AKP first came to power, they are wrong.
Child sexual abusers cannot be pardoned
The AKP intends to give amnesty for the crime of child sexual abuse under the guise of regulating criminal sentences. According to the press statement given by women protesters, "Introducing unlawful, arbitrary reductions to the penalties for child sexual abuse brings impunity. It normalizes a crime. It legitimizes it. Early and forced marriages would become widespread."
Why is the interior minister overreacting to the “Las Tesis” performance?
As defiant women gain ground in all spheres of society and in parliament, patriarchal political rulers are attempting to rise above the law and the constitution. With a demonstration staged by female MPs from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the lyrics of the “Las Tesis” chant echoed in the general assembly hall and even made it to the minutes of the parliament. It was such a milestone that Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu reacted bitterly stating that if the parliament would allow the MPs to carry on with their protests, he, “as the Interior Minister and despite the law and the constitution, would use his rights in the broadest sense”.
Stop killers, not women!
How many working police officers were present for every woman who was at the protest in Kadıköy last Sunday? Why did the police intervene into a gathering of women who were peacefully exercising their right to demonstration, who were protesting male violence, sexual assault, sexual abuse of children and femicide? Why were women battered with the police's disproportionate use of force?
Opposition to injunctions against violence will cause femicides
As embodied by the stance of judge Dursun Genel, opposition to Turkey's injunction laws against violence has been gaining ground recently. Yet removing these injunctions will only cause more femicides.
Protest of Kurdish mothers show us where HDP is
The initiative of the Kurdish families to save and to return home their sons and daughters who took to the mountains to join the outlawed PKK, is the sign that a new stage has been reached to link HDP with terror. So to speak, a fresh blood is trying to be injected to the failed policy.