JINHA

ANKARA – Turkey's Minister of Family and Social Policies Ayşenur İslam, speaking before Parliament in connection with the brutal rape and killing of ÖzgecanAslan in Mersin province that has shaken the country, claimed that violence against women is on the decline.AKP representatives speaking on the issue argued that the rape and murder was not chiefly related to gender issues.

MPs RuhsarDemirel of Eskişehir (Nationalist Movement Party [MHP]), AytuğAtıcıof Mersin (Republican People's Party [CHP]) and ÇiğdemMünevverÖkten, also of Mersin (Justice and Development Party [AKP]), spoke in a section of Parliament devoted to discussing the murder of the young university student.

MünevverÖkten of the AKP claimed that Özgecan's death "could not be explained by gender alone," saying that "mental illness, alcohol addiction and anger management problems" could not be discounted. It was necessary to "diagnose antisocial personalities," she argued.

"I have complete faith that all necessary steps will be taken in the judicial process," added the MP.

Ayşenurİslam, the Minister of Family and Social Policieswho has faced widespread calls for her resignation due to her failure to prevent femicides, claimed that violence against women had not, in fact, increased, but had fallen "even if only relatively." "Unfortunately as in the rest of the world, we have seen an increase in violence in this country," she said, claiming that murders of women may have increased in the last year by 40 percent, but that this matched the rate of murders in general.

Speaking as Group Deputy Chairman of the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) group, PervinBuldansaid that it was necessary for the killers to face punishments that would be a deterrent for others. The state's policies, she said, emboldened killers like Özgecan's three murderers. "If we don't take this seriously, if we don't change our system and our mindsets, many more souls like Özgecan will be lost," she said.

Pervin also repeated the widespread slogan of the Özgecan protests: we're not in mourning; we're in rebellion.

(fk/cm)