JINHA

ISTANBUL – Commenting on the debates about the death penalty advanced by the AKP after the slaying of ÖzgecanAslan, lawyer and member of Women's Group for Monitoring Equality (EŞİTİZ) HülyaGülbahardescribed these discussions as dangerous. She pointed out that when there was execution in Turkey, not one man was ever executed for raping a woman, although more than 10 women were executed for killing men.

The brutal rape and murder of ÖzgecanAslan, a university student in Mersin province, was the straw that broke the camel's backin Turkey. Women across the country are taking to the streets against femicides. In response, State Minister of Economy NihatZeybekci has mentioned the death penalty as a solution. This comment redirected debate away from the complex patriarchal structure, culminating in the state, that perpetuates violence against women.

This redirection, said Hülya, is an attempt by the ruling party and its supporters to use current popular outrage for their own benefit. She pointed out that remarks like "these things happen from time to time" (made by National Education Minister NabiAvcı) were designed to make violence against women seem like something exceptional and to deny the systematic nature of the problem.

Hülya ascribed the violence in Turkey not to the official legal system, which she says contains laws that are not adequately implemented, but to the "secret legal system in people's heads."In Turkey, many rapists and killers of women receive sentence reductions, justified by positive notes in court transcripts like "he was wearing a suit." One man charged with killing his wife in Ankara received a sentence reduction despite pointing his fingers in the shape of a gun and saying aloud "you're next" to the women's organizations following the case in the courtroom.

Hülya pointed out that the state had not opened even one of the sexual violence centers that the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women requires in every province."When there are thousands of different steps like this that the state could take against sexual violence, the attempt to advance outdated ideas like executions, castration, and tit-for-tat makes you think."

Noting that next door in Iran Kurdish young man SamanNaseem was waiting execution just for being a member of the opposition and that a woman was executed two weeks ago in Iran for killing her rapist, Hülyacalled execution "state terror" used against marginalized groups."If you look throughout history, as in the events in Ferguson now, the people the state executes in the middle of the street and in execution chambers always come from the same group."

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