Disgruntled Young Penguin: 15 AKP Quotes on Women’s Role in Society

These are the direct quotations from AKP officials which took place in Turkish media. Even though there might be some losses due to translation, the sentences are so strong and heavy that they are still dreary. Sometimes they may be too ridiculous to believe, but as said before they are direct quotations.

May 2013

‘Violence against women is just selective perception’ said minister of family and social policies, Fatma Şahin claiming that Turkey is doing better than before even though all the surveys disagree. ¹

Jun 2012

‘Why should the baby die if its mother gets raped, the mother should kill herself instead’ said AKP’s Ankara mayor, Melih Gökçek.²

Jun 2012

‘Women who say ‘My body, my decision’ are feminists’ said PM Erdogan on the abortion discussions.³

May 2012

‘I consider abortion as murder’ said PM Erdogan and added ‘I’m also against C-section’.⁴

May 2012

‘Raped women should give birth to the child, the state takes care of the baby’ said minister of health, Recep Akdağ after the discussions started by PM Erdogan on the issue of ‘abortion’. ⁵

May 2012

‘The rapist is more innocent than the victim who has an abortion’ said AKP MP, and also the head of TBMM (National Assembly) commission of human rights, Ayhan Sefer Üstün.⁶

Feb 2012

‘When girls get educated, boys aren’t able to find someone to marry’ said AKP member of Çorum provincial council, Erhan Ekmekçi.⁷

Jun 2011

“Whether she is a girl or woman, I do not know” said PM Erdogan about Dilşat Aktaş, discussing whether she was a virgin or not. She was an unarmed young woman whose hip was broken during a protest regarding another protestor, Metin Lokumcu’s death due to heavy tear gas use in Hopa. She was thought to be dead after a police intervention, and then was prosecuted since she protested.⁸

Mar 2011

‘Violence against women is overrated’ said PM Erdogan. Please note that official number of murdered women in Turkey is 163 in 2011.⁹

Jul 2010

‘I do not believe in the equality of men and women anyways’ said PM Erdogan, shocking the NGO members (most of them were the members of women’s rights NGOs) in the meeting.¹⁰

Jul 2009

‘If you let your daughter alone...’ said PM Erdogan, using a Turkish idiom that basically says that unless parents carefully control their daughter’s actions, she’ll end up with someone unwanted. In this case, the daughter (Münevver Karabulut) mentioned is a murder victim who was killed by her boyfriend who had managed to escape from the police for a long time period. The insufficient effort made the case nationwide.¹¹

Apr 2009

‘They [parents] should have looked after their children’ said İstanbul chief of police again about the murder case of Münevver Karabulut.¹²

Mar 2009

‘Isn’t the chores enough?’ asked minister of environment and forestry, Veysel Eroğlu to a group of women who asked for jobs.¹³

Mar 2009

‘The rate of unemployment is increasing due to women searching for jobs’ said minister of state, Mehmet Şimşek.¹⁴

Mar 2005

‘Turkish women are ornaments to their homes’ said minister of defence, Vecdi Gönül.¹⁵

The list is only translated and sourced by DisgruntledYoungPenguin. The quotes are listed following Gezi Park protests anonymously.

Disgruntled Young Penguin

Tuesday 5 November 2013

15 AKP Quotes on Women’s Role in Society

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