TURKISH DELIGHT. Nirbhaya in Turkey

Tell your story. These three words, “ sende anlat ” in Turkish, have taken Turkey by storm. The words are now a trending on Twitter, with thousands of angrywomen telling their stories of being harassed, raped or assaulted.

The Twitter protest was sparked by the horrific murder of 20-year-old Ozgecan Aslan on February 11. Aslan was the last passenger on a minibus in the small town of Mersin, when the driver took her to a lonely area and attempted to rape her. Aslan fought back with pepper spray, but the attacker, Ahmet Altindoken, stabbed her repeatedly, and then with the help of his father and friends, cut off her hands, burned her and threw her in the river. Her body was discovered two days later.

Violence against women is not new in Turkey. But most violence is domestic. Brutal murders by strangers are relatively rare. Aslan’s savage murder seems to be a tipping point, much like the Delhi gang rape, which has prompted outrage, soul searching, and most importantly, goaded women into speaking out. Protests spread all over Turkey, mostly by women who left their conservative homes. “Don’t tell your daughter not to go out; tell your son to behave,” said one tweeter.

Wrote popular novelist Elif Shafakin The Guardian : “A social transformation is taking place. Turkey’s women are becoming more openly politicised than its men.” At Aslan’s funeral, a wave of women surged forward and carried her body to the gravesite. “No man’s hand will touch her again,” they shouted.

But even as women erupted in anger, conservative voices struck back. The head of the Human Rights Investigation commission and a Member of Parliament, Ayhan Sefer Üstün, outraged women by declaring that “killing the baby in the womb is a greater crime than the deeds of the rapist”.

Women’s rights organisations blame the ruling AKP, which they say is trying to get women back into the home, barefoot, pregnant and headscarved. President Recep Tayip Erdogan was roundly criticised a few months ago for saying women are not equal to men, and the AKP has tried to restrict abortions, ignore domestic violence and elbow women out of the workplace.

This time around, in the face of public rage, Erdogan changed his usual bully boy tactics and played it safe. He admitted that violence against women was Turkey’s “bleeding wound.” His two daughters paid a visit to Aslan’s family, while Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed that he would begin an initiative aimed at curbing violence against women. In one of the more bizarre protests, Turkish men wore miniskirts to protest violence against women.

But blaming the AKP is too easy. The fact is, like India, Turkish women have to grapple everyday with entrenched patriarchy. Domestic violence rates are at an all-time high — nearly 300 women were killed this year by abusive husbands. Indeed, Altindoken’s mother revealed she had been abused by his father for years. Worse, Turkey, again like India, is rapidly changing, and yet sharply divided. It would be comforting to think that Aslan’s murder might change things. But it would be foolish to expect instant change.

Last week, even as Turkey mourned Aslan, another young girl called Aslan was brutally killed by her boyfriend for the most trivial of reasons: because she refused to go to his house with him. Turkish women are not going to be safe as long as their men remain where they are.

The writer is a journalist based in Istanbul and Bangalore

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