ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkey withdrew early on Saturday from a European reference treaty protecting women from violence that it was the first country to sign 10 years ago and named after its largest city.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s overnight decree overturning Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights lawyers, who say the agreement is crucial to combating domestic violence. Hundreds of women gathered at demonstrations across Turkey on Saturday to protest the move.
Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić called the decision “devastating”.
“This move is a huge setback to these efforts and even more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe and beyond,” she said.
The Istanbul Convention stipulates that men and women have equal rights and obliges state authorities to take measures to prevent gender-based violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.
Some officials in Erdogan’s Islamic party have called for the agreement to be revised, saying it is incompatible with Turkey’s conservative values, encouraging divorce and undermining traditional family unity.
Critics also argue that the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories such as sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. They see this as a threat to Turkish families. Hate speech has grown in Turkey, and the country’s interior minister has described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet. Erdogan completely denied their existence.
Women’s groups and their allies who protested the preservation of the convention immediately called for demonstrations across the country on Saturday under the slogan “Withdrawal of decision, implementation of the treaty.” They said their years-long struggle would not be wiped out in one night.
“We fight every day so that the Istanbul Convention is implemented and women live. Now we hear that the Istanbul Convention has been completely repealed, ”said Dilan Akyuz, 30, who joined other women protesting in Istanbul. “We are very angry today. We can no longer bear a single death of a woman. We have no tolerance for this. ”
Rights groups say violence against and killing women is on the rise in Turkey, a statement the interior minister called a “complete lie” on Saturday.
A total of 77 women have been killed since the beginning of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. About 409 women were killed in 2020, and dozens were found dead in suspicious circumstances, according to the group.
Many women’s rights groups have criticized the decision, saying that laws that protect women are being misapplied. The Turkish Women’s Coalition’s defense group says the withdrawal from a human rights agreement is a first in Turkey. “It is clear that this decision will continue to encourage women killers, harassers, rapists,” their statement said.
Turkey’s justice minister said the government was committed to combating violence against women.
“We continue to resolutely protect the honor of our people, our family and our social fabric,” Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul tweeted.
Erdogan has repeatedly stressed the “holiness” of the family and asked women to have three children. Its communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government’s motto was “Strong families, strong society”.
Many women suffer physical or sexual violence from their husbands or partners, but updated official statistics are not available. The Istanbul Convention requires states to collect data.
More than a thousand women and allies gathered in Istanbul, wearing masks and holding placards. There was a strong police presence in the area, and the demonstration ended without serious battles.
They shouted pro-LGBT slogans and demanded Erdogan’s resignation. They were overjoyed when a woman who spoke through a megaphone said, “You can’t lock millions of women in their homes. You can’t wipe them off the streets and squares. ”
“As women, we now believe that withdrawal is a direct attack on women’s rights and a direct attack on the rights of modern young women, in particular,” said Ebru Batur, a 21-year-old demonstrator. “Of course, this makes us feel insecure and just as our rights are being appropriated.”
Turkey was the first country to sign the “Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence” at a commission of ministers meeting in Istanbul in 2011. The law entered into force in 2014, and Turkey’s constitution says international agreements they have the force of law.
Some lawyers said on Saturday that the treaty was still active, arguing that the president could not withdraw from it without the approval of parliament, which unanimously ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2012.
But Erdogan gained radical power with his re-election in 2018, setting Turkey in motion from a parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency.
The Minister of Justice wrote on Twitter that, although the parliament approves the treaties that the executive power implements, the executive also has the authority to withdraw from them.
Women parliamentarians in Turkey’s main opposition party have said they will not recognize the decree, calling it another “coup d’etat” on parliament and a usurpation of the rights of 42 million women.
The German Foreign Ministry joined the critics, saying that “the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention is a wrong signal for Europe, but especially for women in Turkey”.
“Just a few weeks ago, President Erdogan introduced a human rights action plan, which also includes the fight against domestic violence and violence against women,” the German ministry said in a statement. “The renunciation of an important Council of Europe convention calls into question how serious Turkey is when it comes to the objectives set out in that action plan.”
“It is clear that neither cultural nor religious traditions or other national traditions can serve as a disguise to ignore violence against women,” Germany said.
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Mehmet Guzel contributed from Istanbul, and Kirsten Grieshaber contributed from Berlin.