(Ankara) Hundreds of people demonstrated on Saturday in several Turkish cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, against the threat to dissolve one of the country’s largest women’s rights associations for “activities against law and morality “.
Posted yesterday at 2:58 p.m.
“It is not possible to stop our fight. We are not going to allow the closure of our association,” the general secretary of the We Will Stop Feminicide platform, Fidan Ataselim, told AFP.
An Istanbul prosecutor on Wednesday opened a trial for the dissolution of the association for “activity against law and morals”.
Very active in the defense of women’s rights, the association had also organized several demonstrations for the maintenance of Turkey in the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty establishing rules to fight against gender-based violence, of which the country has retired in 2021.
“Do not pursue women, but assassins! “, Launched hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Istanbul.
Representatives of opposition parties as well as family members of women victims of feminicide also participated in the demonstration in Istanbul, noted an AFP journalist on the spot.
“These women are fighters. They did not leave us alone and followed our trial. I wanted to be there to support them,” said Nihat Palandoken, the father of a young girl killed in 2017 by her ex-boyfriend.
At the origin of the trial, complaints filed by individuals who accuse members of the association of “destroying the family on the pretext of defending women’s rights”, for having published reports on feminicides.
These complaints, sent to the Turkish presidency through a website intended to collect requests and complaints from citizens, use, according to the association, “the terminology of the detractors of the Istanbul Convention”.
The Turkish government had justified its decision to abandon the treaty by accusing it of encouraging homosexuality and threatening the traditional family structure.
According to the association, 280 women were killed in 2021, and 217 others died in suspicious circumstances, including those presented as suicides.
The date for the first hearing in the trial has been set for 1er June.
“This is a lawsuit not only against us but against the whole women’s movement in Turkey. We will continue our struggle,” said Rukiye Leyla Suren, lawyer for the association.