Turkey

Control and Sexuality by Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Vanja Hamzić examines zina laws in some Muslim contexts and communities in order to explore connections between the criminalisation of sexuality, gender-based violence and women’s rights activism. The Violence is Not Our Culture Campaign and the Women Living Under Muslim Laws network present this comparative study and feminist analysis of zina laws as a contribution to the broader objective of ending violence in the name of ‘culture’. Attached is the whole book, available for download for free. Please do consider making a donation to WLUML.

"I was the lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and I had the right to defend her," Iranian lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei says of the case that has drawn international attention. Mostafaei was defending Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery when Iranian officials jailed his wife, her brother, and his father-in-law in an apparent attempt to pressure him to back down. In his first interview after fleeing Iran and surfacing in Turkey, Mostafaei talked to RFE/RL's Golnaz Esfandiari, condemning the Iranian judiciary for taking his wife "hostage" and vowing that he will never surrender to Iranian authorities. He also talked about the circumstances under which he was forced to escape Iran and leave his family, including his 7-year-old daughter, behind. (Mostafaei was reportedly taken into custody by Turkish authorities and the UN's refugee agency has said he should be allowed to apply for asylum.)

Mohammad Mostafaie, a human rights defender and lawyer of Sakineh Ashtiani, the woman whose sentence to death by stoning in Iran in June received worldwide public attention, has been arrested and detained by Turkish authorities. On 24 July 2010, his wife, Fereshteh Halimi and brother in law, Farhad Halimi, were arrested and are now detained at the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran. Prior to their arrest, Mostafaie was invited for interrogation and subsequently released by the police but was immediately ordered to be arrested again.

Press Release: Roj Women is an umbrella site that seeks to publicise the work of Roj Women’s Association, a women’s charity working on community development in the UK, and of its political branch, Roj Women’s Assembly, that campaigns for far-reaching legal and political reforms in Turkey. Roj Women strives to give Kurdish women, whether in their countries of origin or in the diaspora, a voice to publicise the gender and racial discrimination they face. Beyond raising awareness at the national and international levels, Roj Women campaigns for change and offers services to support Kurdish women and child victims of male and military violence.

Press Statement: On 06 April, 2010, Yosma Altunbey, a mother of six living in the village of Çığırgan in Kars, Southeast Turkey, was subjected to a brutal physical assault by her husband and his brother. She managed to escape to her parents’ house and filed an official complaint against the perpetrators at the gendarmerie station. According to reports, Gendarme Specialist Sergeant K.T. tried to make her withdraw her complaint, threatened her and eventually assaulted her himself when she refused.

Insanlar mücadeleleriyle varolurlar“. Zeynep Gambetti, a scholar of Kurdish politics, found this comment inscribed in the visitors’ book at the Diyarbakir Art Centre’s exhibit of photographer Ami Vitale’s Kashmir photos. The phrase roughly translates as; “people come into existence through their struggles“. The struggle to “ensure the equal rights of men and women to enjoy all economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights” has indeed defined the existence of many ethnically Kurdish women in Diyarbakir and, more generally, in the south-eastern region of Turkey. The obstacles in this struggle for equality are manifold. While the efforts of Kurdish women in Turkey to overcome these obstacles have been remarkable, there is still considerable progress to be made.

تحدثت الأسبوع الماضي عن حصاد المرأة السعودية خلال عام بمناسبة اليوم العالمي للمرأة وبالطبع لم تكف المساحة للحديث عن الجزء الأول من الموضوع وهو ما أنجز على أن يكون الجزء الثاني لموضوع الباقي ولم يُنجز. لكني وجدت قبل الاستطراد أو المضي في حديثي الذي سوف يكون طويلاً، أن أتعرض لتاريخ هذا اليوم الذي يصادف هذا العام الاحتفاء بمئويته، أي أنه استحدث منذ عام 1910، فما الذي كان يجري في العالم آنذاك ودعا لطرح هذا اليوم كيوم خاص بالمرأة يكون مؤشراً ويوماً يُستخدم لمطالبة النساء بحقوقهن المهضومة عبر العصور والبلدان؟

The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is deeply concerned at reports (The Guardian, 1st Feb 2010) that a 15-year-old girl, a Turkish Kurd, named Berivan, has been jailed in Turkey for nearly eight years after being convicted of "terrorist" offences. She was arrested at a demonstration in the south-eastern city of Batman in October 2009. The 13-and-a-half-year sentence originally imposed on her was later reduced on appeal to seven years and nine months because of her age. She was found guilty of "crimes on behalf of an illegal organisation" after prosecutors alleged she had hurled stones and shouted slogans. She was also convicted of attending "meetings and demonstrations in opposition to the law" and "spreading propaganda for an illegal organisation". There are substantial concerns as to the fairness of her trial and conviction.

Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an "honour" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys. The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

PEACE IN KURDISTAN CAMPAIGN: Open Letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown: We, the undersigned, call on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to use all available diplomatic means to bring an immediate end to the repression of Kurdish politicians in Turkey and to promote a political and negotiated solution to the Kurdish conflict. The mass arrest of some 80 leading members of the new Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) that took place in Turkey on Christmas Eve is a deeply disturbing development that can only have grave consequences for the country’s future peace and stability. The action followed the banning of the popular pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) on 11 December by Turkey’s Constitutional Court.

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