JINHA

ADANA - Women's group lawyers have emerged from the first interview with Çilem Doğan, the woman who became a symbol of resistance after she killed her abusive husband in Adana, Turkey.

When 28-year-old Çilem Doğan's abusive husband threatened to force her into sex work last week and began beating her, she shot him. On the day of the killing, Hasan told Çilem to ready a suitcase; he would take her to the seaside city of Antalya where she would work as a prostitute. When she objected, he began beating her. Çilem found the gun he kept under the pillow and shot him.

Songül Yıldız and Fatoş Hacıvelioğlu are lawyers for the Adana Women's Platform. They visited Çilem Doğan in prison today. "We bring greetings to all women from a woman who, among all the massacres of women, was able to save herself from death at the last minute," said the lawyers.

The first thing Çilem did in the interview was to share a letter jointly written by the women imprisoned in Adana, according to lawyers. Nearly every woman in the prison had been a victim of male violence, she reported.

Next, Çilem discussed her two and a half years of marriage. Çilem's husband, Hasan Karabulut, began abusing her on the 28th day of their marriage. "Even if she didn't report what she called the 'light' beatings, she complained about every one of the heavy beatings. We had difficulty keeping notes on the incidences of abuse she counted. She says that there are documents of them in almost every [police] station in the city." Çilem reported that even in her pregnancy, she was abused. She said that, "I went to nearly every checkup wounded."

When the lawyers asked if her husband was ever penalized for his abuse, Çilem said that the longest he was ever arrested was for three days. He learned Çilem's court dates using Turkey's public "e-state" system. A few days ahead of every court date, he stopped the physical abuse, Çilem reported.

When Çilem opened a divorce case against her husband, he threatened to kill her younger brother. 15 days before Çilem shot her husband, she had reported the various illegal activities he engaged in (including loan sharking) to the police. Police officers, rather than arresting him or issuing protection, sent her back to the home, telling her to gather information for them.

Çilem recalled the moment when, as her husband pushed her onto the bed and began beating her on July 9, her hand touched a piece of metal--the gun he kept under the pillow.

"I don't remember how I got the gun or how I shot him in that moment," Çilem told the lawyers. "If that gun had not gone off then, I would absolutely not have left there alive. I actually didn't even know whether he was wounded or dead. I thought he was still coming after me." When Çilem heard that Hasan was dead, she turned herself in.

Çilem's bunkmates report that Çilem sleeps with her eyes open. Çilem says she still "feels him coming after me," but that she mainly worries for her small daughter, who needs support at this moment.

When lawyers asked Çilem what she plans to do when she gets out of prison, she said: "Even if I am always stuck between these walls, after this I am going to struggle for women." If she gets out, Çilem said, she plans to travel from city to city to fight for women's rights.

(gc/cm)