Free Speech, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Turkish Feminist Jailed For Calling Erdogan “An Enemy of Women”

We have followed the rapid destruction of the secular government and civil liberties in Turkey under the authoritarian rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan used a failed coup to push his effort to create a de facto Islamic regime and to complete his work in arresting his critics, including forcing the resignation of thousands of secular academics, and suspending all civil liberties in a proclaimed state of emergency. Despite Erdogan’s repression of dissidents and groups in the name of Islam, there remain people of courage who defy him and his government. Sebahat Tuncel was sentenced Saturday for saying (four years ago) that Erdogan was a “complete misogynist” and an enemy of women — statements that are demonstrably true.

Erdogan’s government regularly imprisons people who criticize him or his imposition of religious intolerance in Turkey, a nation that once followed a secular tradition of separation of church and state. Erdogan ran on the promise that he was going to respect that tradition. He lied.  As soon as he secured a majority, he set about turning Turkey into another abusive government opposing religious orthodoxy on its population.

At the same time, his government jailed people for up to four years for insulting the president — the eradication of any semblance of free speech in Turkey.

While President Donald Trump has repeatedly praised Erdogan, he is a blood-soaked petty tyrant.

Tuncel is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin who served in the Parliament and was previously convicted of belonging to a “terrorist organization.” Her criticism stated the obvious about a president who has publicly rejected the very notion that women are equal to men and denounced women who refuse to be mothers as “deficient” and “incomplete.”

27 thoughts on “Turkish Feminist Jailed For Calling Erdogan “An Enemy of Women””

  1. ‘Erdogan used a failed coup to push his effort to create a de facto Islamic regime and to complete his work in arresting his critics, including forcing the resignation of thousands of secular academics,’

    The first steps were taken long before 2016’s failed coup. Recall the palace with 1,150 rooms, +/- toilet seats of gold. Recall the thousands of legal threats. He who looks like Smeagol, acts like Sauron and, yes, ‘cites Hitler’s Germany as an example of effective government’ (The Guardian, 1 January 2016), wants to be The New Sultan. In 2015 a Dr. Çiftçi compared him to a character from Lord of the Rings. Legal proceedings ensued and a team of academics, psychologists and a media expert were asked to prepare a report. We may find such antics amusing at a superficial level, but who elected this precious president? We the people!

    And Erdogan is not the only thorn in Tuncel’s side,. Calling for wife beating to become a priority concern for the police. who prefer not to get involved, and thus give their tacit endorsement, is reformist folly, particularly when there are so many reactionaries such as Ebru Asiltürk, ‘the spokeswoman for womens’ affairs for Turkey’s Islamic conservative Saadet Party.’ She opined recently that ‘…the treaty [Istanbul Convention to tackle violence again women and domestic abuse, as well as promoting gender equality – which Turkey was, ironically, the first country to ratify!] would be like a “bomb” destroying Turkey’s traditional family structure’ (dw.com, 24 July). Femicide is indeed an indication of serious, wider social and sexual problems that are not confined to a small minority of deviants or reactioary regimes – Poland is another example – but are typical of a sick society. Neither changes in the law and policing policy, nor more prosecutions against wife beaters offer a cure.

    1. Haggia Sophia was all over my news feeds. I haven’t seen anything about this lady except Turley’s blog… But at least you got to express your two minutes of hate against feminists and the “western press”.

    1. The private DHA news agency said police recorded his case as a “suspicious death.” – Washington Post

      One of his recent articles:

      09/11/2020

      “The West must be forced to listen to our voices”

      https://uwidata.com/13769-the-west-must-be-forced-to-listen-to-our-voices/

      “Our message is clear: Imperialists, colonialists, settlers, and Western supremacists; shut up, stand back, and listen; as we had to listen for centuries! Your narrative is empty, and you cannot fool us anymore. We will build our own new world soon: those billions who were nothing in your world will become everything in ours.

      “Now we are speaking, and for the first time in modern history, there is nothing you can do about it. You will simply have to get used to the sound of our voices!”

  5. Erdogan is a despot.

    Affirmative action is unconstitutional.

    Sorry, ladies; time to discover merit – Makers not takers.

    Oh, and duty – women make Americans…or not.

    The American fertility rate is in a “death spiral.”

    You’ve got a whole lot of work to do.

    More Americans die than are born.

    America is vanishing as the U.S. population is imported (What?!!! Can you do that and still be a country?).

  6. One has to wonder if why we should be concerned. The people of Turkey voted for him and knew what they were getting. According to Lizel hintz, a professor at John Hopkins university. “Voters reeling from a debilitating economic crisis in 2001 demonstrated they were fed up with unstable coalitions, corruption and economic mismanagement by failing to help any of the parties of the previous ruling coalition over the electoral threshold,” in addition “The AK Party’s charismatic leader and its roots in political Islam, which was previously targeted by secular powers in the military and judiciary, also played a role in creating an enduring supporter base.”

    Again in 2018, he received just under 53% of the vote. So the people are electing him. Let the Turkish people take care of their own problems. It is not like he is getting 25% of the vote and staging a coup to stay in power.

    1. Ron P: Keep drinking the Kool Aid. Americans like you who have never lived elsewhere think they know everything. Look at your own country: Your Presidents don’t get the popular vote and still they win! That’s democracy? At least Turkey makes an attempt to look like he won. Your government throws it back in the face of the voters and lets them know you may bevin the majority but whoever we want will be president.

      1. MikiDash, so are you saying ” whoever we want will be president. “? If so,that is what I was trying tobsay. I may not have communicated that properly.

        Almost 53%, more than ” just enough” to get elected, voted for him. That was Turkeys decision. I may not have voted for him had I lived in Turkey, but the Turks did. They made their choice a number of times.

        Do you disagree that this was the Turks decision, or do you believe something else?

  7. Good thing Trump does not read. But he already has said that he would like to jail his critics. And it’s a safe bet his cult would cheer him on.

  8. Trump loves Erdogan. They have the same view on how to treat women, just grab their ******* and you can do anything you want. If they resist, force them or pay them or marry them. Two peas in a pod, Trump and Erdogan. You can even throw them in jail. You can?? Yup.

  9. Good! If he was really smart, he would lock up every feminist in the country and then export them to some country he hates. Feminism is a cancer, and will destroy any society that embraces it. Look at us. We now have to import baby-makers who haven’t read the New York Times.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  10. He’s Erdoghan the 8th he is.
    He lives down South in a garbage can.
    He got married to a hooker next door.
    She’s been married seven times before!
    And everyone was an Erdogan!

  11. ERDOGAN is a THUG, TIN ORN DICTATOR, TRYIN TO RE-Establish the FAILED OTTMAN EMPIRE, he and his friends and family are corrupt, refer to his son’s dealings and close bankers. He is a BULLY who is trying to THREATEN tall his Neighbors, Greece, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Armenia, Cyprus and etc. NATO should wash their hands of this cheap THUG. TURKISH SPRING COMING to Clean House of Erdogan and his so called followers/friends

  12. While President Donald Trump has repeatedly praised Erdogan, he is a blood-soaked petty tyrant who

    You need to get a grip. Erdogan is bad news, but he’s not that bloody. The secular parliamentary regime that preceded him may have put more civilians in the grave in the course of counter-partisan warfare in Kurdistan than he has.

    The previous regime was more liberal-democratic than Erdogan’s. However, elected officials had just as much discretion as the military and the judiciary were willing to accord them and important political parties were banned repeatedly over the period running from 1960 to 2002 (quite apart from the bouts of military rule and political violence the country suffered).

    Political pluralism hasn’t been completely dismantled in Turkey. The country has a multiparty system and regular elections. It’s authoritarian, but less abusive than about 2/3 of the regimes you find in the Near East, North Africa, and Central Asia. What’s changed is that it used to have a large advantage in civil rights and political participation over the median of the region and now has a modest advantage.

    And you’ve missed some cardinal reasons why Erdogan has been able to build a constituency: he has some satisfactory instincts in the realm of economic policy and his predecessors were f*ck-ups. Per capital product in real terms has doubled during his time in office and Turkey is now a borderline affluent country with a standard of living roughly equivalent to that of the U.S. ca. 1973. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but the country’s macroeconomic indicators are still better than they were prior to 2002: the inflation rate is 12% per annum, not 100%. Unemployment rates are bad – around 13% last year – but no worse than they were under his predecessors. Labor mobilization is very deficient (41% of the population over 15 is employed right now, v. the 60% that’s normal for an occidental country), but its not bad compared to regional norms. The public sector debt load (at 33% of gdp) is manageable. Public sector borrowing is too large, but it’s been kept in a narrow band between 1% and 3% of GDP. They ran a balance of payments surplus last year, for the first time in 20 years.

    1. The same can be said when you compare Russia today with Russia decades ago and, without a doubt, the USSR. A people tend to move toward freedom and prosperity. It is not uniquely an American concept. However, the difference between the US and almost all Western Nations and Russia and Turkey is that these countries, along with many other en route to that freedom and prosperity, exist more in that state of chaos found in a transition of this magnitude. The US is still in a degree of chaos after almost 250 years of transition, not to mention the thousands of years preceding. Americans are first and foremost human beings and share to some degree the same paths as all humanity.

      The problems lie primarily in that Russia, Turkey, China, and other advancing nations are taken as equal members of the same club that includes the most advanced nations. Turkey as a member of NATO and at the same time giving way to dominance of extreme religious doctrines, creates the rub. The same is true with China. China is exercising an economic colonialism not unliked that of the US and some European nations after WW2 when it was agreed that military colonialism simply would not work anymore. Of course, the US and other countries attached a big stick to their economic colonialism as can be seen with the US in its backyard: Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, etc. In other words you can democratically and freely elect a leader but if we don’t like it we will fund your enemies, mine your harbors, murder your leaders and tens of thousands of any that oppose you, and us/US. China is doing that with nonsense such as a thousand year old claim to the South China Sea, claims on Taiwan, etc. The bedrock of these military endeavors is the economic ‘Silk Road’ infrastructure. Soon a second Panama Canal will be built and operated by China. Already many harbor/freight installations around the world are operated by China. Turkey is attempting the same thing in its backyard: allying with Libya to gain control of oil and gas reserves in the Mediterranean using nonsensically fabricated ‘corridors that stretch across the Med from Libya to Turkey enveloping Greek Islands, etc. Turkey is a part of NATO but does not respect rules laid down by NATO and allies itself with Russia, buys Russian military weaponry that could jeopardize NATO, etc.

      Comparing Turkey to day with Turkey a few decades ago is one thing but one must keep in mind that Turkey today is not even a century old. Turkey a few centuries ago rule the entire world around it. Make America Great Again, Make Turkey Great Agin, Make Russia Great Again, Make Chine Great Again, etc. Same old hat.

  13. Turkey’s an ally through NATO and Erdogan’s it’s leader. Should we ignore our strategic interests in the region just to call out his claimed abuses?

    2. You think Erdogan would pull out of NATO for being “called out”? Don’t project your thin skinned sensibilities on the man. Remember Trump’s letter to Erdogan about Syria? LMAO

      1. “You think Erdogan would pull out of NATO for being “called out”? Don’t project your thin skinned sensibilities on the man. Remember Trump’s letter to Erdogan about Syria? LMAO”
        ******************
        Apparently you in your stupor do. What would happen is that our intelligence from a Turkey would dry up, you twit. That’s a major loss and makes us more vulnerable to terrorist attack just so mush-headed liberals can virtue signal.

        1. That is quite a leap you made there. You actually believe Turkey would abandon its strategic interest in having an alliance with the US/NATO over a little finger wagging. This is the definition of hysteria. Sad.

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