In a case that sent sent shock waves through the nation, last week, Semih Çelik — a 19-year-old butcher — killed and beheaded a woman named İkbal Uzuner, before killing himself. The murderer threw Uzuner’s head from Istanbul’s historic city walls while her mother was present. Çelik also killed another young woman, Ayşenur Halil, by slitting her throat the same day.
These deaths came hard on the heels of the murder of a 26-year old policewoman in September, who was also killed by a suspect with a long criminal record.
In response to the growing public anger, on Wednesday Erdoğan told his ruling AK Party’s parliamentary group: “A series of recent events, from the martyrdom of a policewoman to the brutal murder of our young women, have provoked a justified reaction within our nation.”
“It bothers us, as it does everyone else, to see criminal types with dozens of cases on their criminal records, walking around freely,” he added, promising to toughen up the sentence enforcement system and stop early releases.
But many women are skeptical of Erdoğan’s latest promise, since the president unilaterally decided to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention — which is designed to prevent and combat violence against women — in 2021, under the pretext that some of its clauses are harmful to traditional family structures. The convention also aims to protect LGBTQ+ communities in the country.
The “We Will Stop Femicide Platform” reported that in Turkey, 34 women were murdered by men, and 20 more died under suspicious circumstances in September alone.
