Our Parliamentary Group Deputy Ms Filiz Kerestecioğlu's speech at 2017 budget talks:
We have always emphasized the dangers of the discourse that is hostile to women and that makes women a target for male violence. Gender equality must be emphasized by the people in highest positions of authority, politicians, opinion leaders, by everyone in every strata of society. Only then, can we hope to stop random violent attacks carried out in public by men against women, or sentences such as “since you want to get divorced I have the right to kill you”, or the reduction of murderers’ sentences on the pretext of victims’ “wearing short skirt, starting at men, sharing a photo in the social media.”
Underlying all these are the policies that governments have been following for years. The discourse of the Ministers and the President has served to escalate violence against women up to this point.
There are elected women in this country, elected mayors, elected MPs. These women are the ones who have been fighting against violence against women. While Peoples’Democratic Party increases the number of women representatives, others try to reduce it. With the arrests of HDP group’s deputy chair Diyarbakır MP Çağlar Demirel and our Women Assembly’s Spokesperson Siirt MP Besime Konca following their detention on 13 December, the number of our female deputies under arrest has risen to seven. This is a shame for our country. Ministry of Family and Social Policies should have reacted at least for female Deputies.
Torture Against Besime Konca: “Your Place is Either Coffin or Prison”
The fact that our Women Assembly’s Spokesperson Besime Konca has been tortured is horrifying. Besime Konca was tortured, she was forced to listen to military anthems by security forces all the way from Diyarbakır to Batman and she was threatened with words such as “your place is either coffin or prison”.
Parliament Should Stand Against the Arrests and Torture For Its Own Dignity
Besime Konca is a Member of this Parliament and the issue at stake is the dignity of this Parliament not of Peoples’Democratic Party. If this parliament cares to take a role to defend its own dignity, the chairperson of the parliament must react to this. He must openly declare that none of the deputies can be tortured, no one can be treated badly or tortured.
Standing Committee on the Rights of Child Should be Established
Standing Committee on the Rights of Child should immediately be established in the parliament and start its work. A report has been prepared in the Committee on Investigation and Prevention of Child Abuse, but it still has not been presented to the Assembly. Unfortunately this parliament has “more important”issues than children and women to deal with. Children have been seriously abused. We witnessed such cases in Karaman, in Adıyaman…On December 11, 2016 four girls attempted mass suicide. I am talking about four girls…They tried to cut their wrists; this is what the media says. I want to ask this incident to the Minister.
It is An All-Male Committee
The cameramen broadcasting from the parliament-supposedly upon an order- were trying to avoid shooting the photos of our arrested deputies’ which we place on the Parliament seats every session. However, they failed to perceive and broadcast the “picture” behind the Ministers. Only men were sitting there, experts, bureaucrats. All men, unfortunately…Cameramen should have shared this truth with the public.
14 Aralık 2016