Official Turkish Body Said it was OK for Girls to Marry at 9, Claims it was Only Following Islam

The Caliphication of Turkey

Turkish schoolchildren in Ankara / Reuters / Umit Bektas

Turkey’s opposition have demanded a parliamentary investigation into the Directorate of Religious Affairs, an influential government department, after it proclaimed that Islamic Law approved of boys marrying at 12 and girls at 9.

In an online religious glossary intended for the public released earlier this week, Diyanet, as the body is known, stated that these are the earliest ages for children to reach adolescence, and once the threshold of emotional and physical maturity is crossed, they must be allowed to marry “to save themselves from adultery.”

Child rape is preferable to adultery in Islam.

The statement ignited an immediate firestorm of opposition from politicians, women's rights activists, and secularists.

"The Turkish Civil Code clearly states that adulthood begins at the age of 18. Early marriages violate children's rights, women's rights, human rights. As CHP MPs we ask parliament to investigate child marriages," said Murat Bakan, a deputy from the main opposition party on Twitter.

In the city of Trabzon, female protesters staged a demonstration holding placards reading, “Stop exploitation of children!” while in Izmir, the banners proclaimed, “Child marriage is a crime.”

The legal marriage age in Turkey is 18, with exceptions for 17-year-olds with parental consent, and 16 year-olds with a court-issued permit.

Diyanet has taken down its original entry, clarifying that it “had never approved child marriages and never will” and insisting it was merely interpreting Islamic scriptures. It also emphasized that “consent” was a necessary condition of any union.

A nine year old cannot give consent!

But the outrage, which has included calls and a Twitter hashtag campaign for Diyanet to be shut down, highlights the long-running controversies of underage marriage and Islamization in Turkey.

An academic study last year, estimated that as many as one in three Turkish marriages involve a partner who is under 18. The vast majority of the children involved are women, who are disproportionately likely to be poor, illiterate, living in rural areas, and later subjected to abuse and exploitation.

As if they could give consent!!!

There is concern that in conjunction with November’s mufti law – in which the ruling Islamist AKP party allowed sanctioned clerics, rather than state officials, to register marriages – will legitimize traditional child bride unions, reversing decades of progress.

Meanwhile, Diyanet, which was once a secular watchdog that oversaw restrictions on religious proselytizing, has, according to its critics, morphed into a powerful propaganda tool for the Islamist government.

Erdogan is slowly, patiently tuning Turkey into his own Caliphate.

Its budget has ballooned under former PM and current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It has attracted scorn for its published rulings, including a (later withdrawn) fatwa that stated a father can desire his daughter, and another, that said it was sufficient for a man to “see his wife as his mother or sister” to divorce her.

Wow! Who Saw That Coming? Turkish Government Listens to People!

Turkey withdraws bill after protests over

child-sexual assault clause

Rare concession to popular will comes after critics say freeing offenders from jail if they married their victims would legitimise rape

Women protesting in Ankara last weekend. One placard reads: ‘Rape cannot be pardoned.’ Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty

Kareem Shaheen, The Guardian

Turkey’s government has withdrawn a controversial bill that would have granted amnesty to some men convicted of child sex assault if they married their victims.


Erdogan's daughter Dep Chief Woman's Rights Group

The announcement on the bill, a rare concession to popular opposition in the country, came after street protests at the weekend and criticism from civil society groups, including a women’s rights organisation whose deputy chief is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s daughter, Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar.

The proposed amnesty for some child sex offenders was part of a larger bill approved by lawmakers in a hearing to reform the criminal code. It would have suspended the sentences of men convicted of sexual assault of a minor if they married their victims and could prove the act was carried out without force or “restriction on consent”.

The Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, had said the bill would be withdrawn in its current form and revised, but the justice minister, Bekir Bozdağ, later said the government would not seek to table a new proposal on the matter.

“If the political parties achieve a broad consensus about this issue in the future, then it can come to our agenda again, but the issue is now closed,” he said, speaking at the parliament in Ankara.

Rights groups had condemned the bill, and weekend protests drew thousands of people. The UN had also criticised it, saying it would would weaken Turkey’s ability to combat sexual abuse and child marriage.

“It would create a perception of impunity in favour of perpetrators of such child rights violations,” Unicef said. “In addition, it would increase the risk for further victimisation of the child if she marries the perpetrator of the sexual abuse.”

In his first public comments on the amendment, Erdoğan earlier signalled that it should be withdrawn and that lawmakers ought to seek a bill that had “broad” backing from society.

“I see great benefit in solving this problem in a broad consensus, taking into account criticism and recommendation from different sections of society,” Erdogan told the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Did Erdogan fall on his head? Does his daughter have that much influence over him that he behaves out of character? Or has the fact that he has arrested everyone who might have ever thought a negative thought about him leave him with the knowledge that protesters might genuinely be concerned about what they are protesting rather than being pawns of his enemies? Whatever the story is, it looks good on him and might even give some hope to Americans and their concern over Ivanka Trump's influence over her father.

Sümeyye Erdoğan -  London School of Economics and Political Science (Hmmm, wonder what her ambitions are?)

The ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) said the particularly controversial element of bill was aimed at resolving the custom of child marriage common in rural areas of the country, and would not pardon rapists.

Researchers from Gaziantep University in 2013 had estimated that one in three marriages in Turkey involved a person under 18, and that the vast majority were illiterate.

The bill would target about 3,000 men who are jailed for breaking the law on child marriage after conducting a religious ceremony with the family and girl’s “consent”. Critics have pointed out that underage girls cannot give meaningful consent.

At least not a consent free of considerable pressure.

Well done, Erdogan! Never thought those words would ever come out of my fingers.

Turkey Fights Dirty - Warns Travelers of High Rape Rate in Sweden

Turkey warns travelers at airport of high

‘rape rate’ in Sweden amid underage sex scandal

Advice for Swedes - don't get in a street fight with a Turk, it will not go well for you

A passenger looks around to read a billboard that reads, 'Travel warning - Do you know that Sweden has the highest rape rate worldwide?' at the departures area of the Istanbul Ataturk International airport on August 19, 2016. © Ozan Kose / AFP

Turkey has posted its own "travel warning" amid an ongoing international scandal linked to Turkey’s underage sex law, placing ads at Istanbul Airport alleging that "Sweden has the highest rape rate worldwide."

The "warning" apparently appeared at the international Ataturk airport, in the form of a banner, by the Turkish Gunes newspaper, The Local reported on Friday.

Earlier, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom took to social media, calling on Ankara to "reverse" a court ruling which she believed legalized sex with children under the age of 15 in Turkey. Ankara blasted the Swedish official, with her Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu calling the allegations "lies" and said that Wallstrom had no idea of what she was talking about.

Expressing its support "of freedom of speech," the embassy of Sweden in Ankara said it had "no interest" in demanding that the banner be removed.

The Swedish diplomats in Turkey have also released a statement calling the cited rape statistics "reoccurring misconceptions."

"To compare reported rape in Sweden with reported rapes in other countries with different legal and statistical systems does not describe reality correctly," the Swedish embassy in Ankara wrote. It explained that crime statistics are calculated differently in Sweden, with "every single offense" being recorded separately, even when involving the same victim and suspect over a particular period of time.  

Reporting rates also influence the statistics, the embassy said, adding that their authorities "make great efforts to encourage victims of sexual offenses to report these crimes."

International concern over changes into Turkish laws regarding punishment for sexual abuse of children has already triggered diplomatic trouble. Austria's deputy ambassador in Turkey has been summoned by Ankara over a message shown at Vienna airport, which read "Turkey allows sex with children under the age of 15."

Earlier this year, Turkey's constitutional court canceled a legal article pertaining to the sexual abuse of children under 15 years of age following a petition by a lower court, which said there was no difference between cases of sexual acts involving teenagers or toddlers. According to Turkish Hurriyet Daily, the move was to "increase rather than decrease sentences for the crime."

Gradual punishments based on the age of the sexual abuse and rape victims will be written into law soon, the Turkish media explained, saying a distinction will be made between victims aged under 12 and those aged between 12 and 18. Citing unnamed sources, Hurriyet reported that the new law would toughen sentences for offenders targeting younger children.

The age for 'legal' sex in Turkey is 18. Sex with a child younger than 18 is still an offence. The article that was struck-down by the higher court did not cancel the legal age. It cancelled a proposition to make changes to the law because they were deemed inadequate. The government was given 6 months to re-write the proposal to increase penalties for younger victims of rape.

The Swedish minister and the Austrian government owe an apology to Turkey for putting their mouths before their brains.

Child Sex Abuse Scandal Rocks Turkey

Company with ties to government operating illegal dormitories

to teach religion; instead are teaching child sex abuse,

pornography, and bestiality

by CHRIS TOMLINSON

A sex abuse scandal involving young children has rocked the Turkish province of Karaman where a teacher faces up to 600 years in prison.

A shocking 14-page indictment against teacher Muharrem B. has caused scandal across Turkey. The 54-year-old is accused of sexually abusing children between the ages of eight and 10 over a period of four years.

The entire scandal started after a nine year old boy refused to go to school earlier this year. The boy was referred by a doctor to a psychologist who was able to find out that the boy had been repeatedly raped by his teacher. An investigation was launched and police found that six other children were raped, three were suspected of being raped and one boy was sexually molested. Police have said there are indications that the number of victims could be much higher and could be up to 45 children reports Die Welt.

Muharrem B. has so far admitted to molesting at least four of the children and is also accused of forcing the children to watch pornography with him. The accused denied forcing the children to watch pornography saying: “The children might have seen these kinds of images accidentally on my open computer screen when they entered my room,” during the indictment.

The children had a different story and told the court: “Our teacher made us watch animal and people porn,” and said that their teacher often described to them his sexual relations with his wife in detail.

One of the children also said “everyone knew in the home,” about the abuse “but we couldn’t talk among ourselves or talk to our families about it.” Another described the horrific conditions saying: “He came at night and forced me to come along. I defended myself, but he did not let up. A few days later he took me away again. I was very afraid of him.”

The employer of the teacher, the Ensar Foundation, attempted to cover up the matter on their end. They claimed the teacher had only worked as a volunteer for them in 2013 however it was proven that he had been working for them since they opened their office in the area in 2012.

In Turkey it is illegal to operate dormitories for young children but this did not stop the Ensar Foundation. It was also revealed that authorities turned a blind eye to these illegal accommodations while abuse was happening in them.

The Ensar Foundation is  close to the ruling AKP party headed by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. The foundation’s dormitories and camp sites are used to facilitate religious education and fulfil Erdogan’s ideal of a “religious generation.” Religious allies of Erdogan were criticized recently after a cartoon was released encouraging children to commit martyrdom in a magazine aimed at young boys.

Suicide, rape, bestiality, pornography - This is the religion Erdogan supports?

Child sex abuse and violence against women has increased spectacularly since Erdogan came to power in Turkey.

Many critics have accused the government of a cozy relationship with the foundation and said they are trying to keep the scandal out of the limelight. Turkish journalist Serbay Mansuroglu, who initially broke the story, said: “I know how political discussions run in Turkey, but I did not think that even on an issue such as child abuse they would run that way. Instead of protecting children, the Minister protects the establishment. And the government instigates a discussion that only aims to make us forget the abuse.”

The government rejected a parliamentary motion to form an inquiry into sexual abuse at the Ensar facility, but was overruled the following day by parliament. Go figure!

The new Turkish migrant deal with the European Union could see visa-free access to all Turkish citizens as early as this year according to some reports and many believe it is one step closer for Turkey joining the EU as a full member.

That's all we need, ISIS members crossing freely into Turkey, picking up a false passport and walking right into Europe.

Turkish ‘Ministry of Religion’ Promotes Martyrdom to Children in Colorful Comic Strips

© Fatih Saribas / Reuters

The latest issue of a children’s magazine published by Diyanet, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, which is a government agency and the highest national religious body, contains a series of cartoons glorifying Islamic martyrdom.

A colorful cartoon titled “may god bless our martyrs, may their graves be full with holy light” features dialogues between parents and children that promotes an idea of religious martyrdom. In one box of the comics, a father says to his son: “How good it is to be a martyr...” He also adds that martyrdom gives a person an opportunity “to gain the right to go to heaven.”


In another box from the comics, a girl can be seen saying “I wish I could be a martyr.” “If you desire enough, Allah will give you that opportunity,” the mother in the box replies to the girl.

A statement near the last picture reads: “Our prophet says: a martyr feels the pain of dying as much as you feel pain when being pinched.”


Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a dedication ceremony for an Islamic mosque in Lanham, Maryland, April 2, 2016 © Thomas RamstackErdogan opens $100mn Turkish cultural center in Maryland, blasts US elections’ Islamophobic rhetoric

Another statement attributed to Prophet Mohammed says: “A martyr would love to go back to the real world and be martyr ten times more after the honoring and prestige they receive in the heaven.”

Psychologist and professor Dr. Serdar Degirmencioglu harshly criticized the latest issue of the Diyanet’s “Child Magazine” featuring the controversial comics, but said that introducing children into the ideas of radical Islam has long been part of the Turkish government’s policy.

“They want to use the drawings to transfer the message of martyrdom to children because they think it will be more attractive,” he said in an interview with the Turkish Evrensel newspaper adding that the idea of martyrdom promoted by the government describes it as a “painless death and a promise of heaven.”

“Religiosity has, in recent years, turned into a literal political tool. They do not even hide it. The Ministry of Religion was provided more money than several other ministries combined and continues intensive work for religious children,” he added.

The professor also equated the mentality promoted by such comics with the mentality of those who committed deadly terrorist attacks in Turkish Ankara and Suruc, as well as Brussels and Paris.

“Turkey is overwhelmed with the pain of these massacres and with those pursuing the mentality of religiosity. All this has led to the death of people. Exactly the same mentality that blinds people to the horrors is what the Presidency of Religious Affairs is trying to spread among the children in Turkey. The children will grow up and they will run toward death when those in power tell them to,” he told Evrensel.

Diyanet follows and promotes the orthodox Sunni Islam tradition not only in Turkey, but also abroad. On Saturday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated a new multimillion Diyanet Center of America, calling it the Turkish-American Center of Culture and Civilization.

A complex, which, according to the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper, contains “one of the largest Turkish mosques” alongside with conference halls, basketball courts, a restaurant, Turkish bath and a cultural research center, was built by funds from Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs as well as some NGOs.

During the opening ceremony, Erdogan called the complex “a center of civilizations” and said that it would serve both American Muslims and people of other faiths, as well as promote Islam’s message of love and compassion.

I wonder if Islam has any idea what love and compassion are? They are certainly deluded.

Video Shows Islamic State Sales of Yazidi Sex Slaves in Turkey

Caution: another very difficult read

German public television aired a segment this month about the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) selling Yazidi women in Turkey

Yazidi Family Reunited after purchase negotiated with ISIS in Turkey

Reuters
by MARY CHASTAIN

The station ADR discovered that ISIS used a “liaison office” in Gaziantep, which is also known as Antep, in Turkey near the Syrian border.

Note: video is in German

Other stations NDR and SWR reported:

IS [Islamic State] offers women and underage children in a kind of virtual slave market with for-sale photos. … The transfer of money, as the reporter discovered, takes place through a liaison office in Turkey. …

For weeks, NDR and SWR accompanied a Yazidi negotiator, who, on behalf of the families, negotiates with the IS for the release of the slaves and their children. … the women are sold in a digital slave market to the highest bidder. 15,000 to 20,000 US dollars are a typical price. Similar sums for ransom are also required to free Yazidis. The money is then transferred via IS-liaison offices and middlemen to the terrorist group.

NDR and SWR were present at the liberation of a woman and her three small children, aged between two and four years old, and followed the negotiations. How many Yazidi slaves are still ‘owned’ by IS is unclear. Experts estimate that there still could be hundreds.

The Yazidi negotiator worked to liberate this woman and her children

The woman embraces her relatives after being reunited

The negotiator “transferred more than” $2.5 million to the terrorist group to rescue “250 Yazidi women and children.”

The negotiator meets with the ISIS operatives to deliver $2.5 million

ISIS sellers typically demand between $15,000 and $20,000 for each woman. The Yazidi families sacrifice all their money and savings to rescue their loved ones. NDR also reported that Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani has paid for some of the ransom demands, even though the money lands in the hands of ISIS.

The reports have resulted in the Gaziantep Bar Association filing “a criminal complaint against” law enforcement in the city for having “committed neglect of duty and misconduct by not taking required measures, and not carrying out preventive and required intelligence activities before the media covered the said incidents.” They demanded the courts prosecute those responsible for these crimes.

Wow, that's courageous!

“The tragic reality is that Gaziantep is a crowded city; the suicide bombers easily cross [to Syria and Iraq]. Unfortunately, Gaziantep exports terrorism,” explained lawyer Bektas Sarkli, the head of Gaziantep Bar Association. “When you see the ammunition captured and especially take into account the money transferred here [it is clear that] ISIS easily shelters in this city. Gaziantep is the logistic site of ISIS.”

Islamic State jihadists target Yazidis because they consider the minority religious sect “devil-worshippers.” In summer 2014, ISIS terrorists invaded northern Iraq, where most Yazidis live, killing men and kidnapping women and girls for sex slavery. Mirza Ismail, founder and chairman of the Yazidi Human Rights Organization, spoke to Congress about the actions, which Yazidis argue fit the legal definition of genocide:

According to many escaped women and girls to whom I spoke in Northern Iraq, the abducted Yazidis, mostly women and children, number over 7,000.

Some of those women and girls have had to watch 7-, 8-, and 9-year-old children bleed to death before their eyes, after being raped by ISIS militia multiple times a day.

- with the unequivocal approval of Mohammed, Allah's messenger

I met mothers, whose children were torn from them by ISIS. These same mothers came to plead for the return of their children, only to be informed, that they, the mothers, had been fed the flesh of their own children by ISIS. Children murdered, then fed to their own mothers.

ISIS militias have burned many Yezidi girls alive for refusing to convert and marry ISIS men. 

Young Yezidi boys are being trained to be jihadists and suicide bombers. All of our temples in the ISIS controlled area are exploded and destroyed. Why? Because we are not Muslims, and because our path is the path of peace. For this, we are being burned alive: for living as men and women of peace.

Gatestone Institute also points out Turkey’s alleged history of aiding rebels and jihadists in Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011. Terrorists took over Azaz, a key town in Syria near the border of Turkey in September 2013, after Turkey “vocally supported the fight against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and allowed weapons to cross into Syria on its southern border.” The capture of Azaz allowed easier access to Syria to the jihadists. Two months later, CNN reported on a secret route from Turkey to Syria used by Islamic State jihadists.

Turkey supports ISIS
In July 2014, an anonymous man claiming to be an ISIS jihadist told The Jerusalem Post that Turkey funds the terrorist group. A Turkish nurse only known as E.G. complained to authorities that she is tired of treating members of ISIS. She said she is “disturbed” the militants receive treatment in Turkish hospitals even though they hold several Turkish nationals as hostages. A Western official told The Guardian that evidence seized at the compound of Abu Sayyaf, an ISIS leader, proved links between the terrorist group and the Turkish government.

Turkey joined the fight against ISIS over the summer after a suicide bomber killed 32 people in Suruç, and a militant murdered a Turkish soldier.

However, most of their bombs and bullets seem to have been directed toward Kurdish Peshmerga who are fighting ISIS. Kurds are a threat to separate from Turkey and Sultan Erdogan would be happy to eliminate as many as possible.

I curse every cent of that $2.5 million and every other cent ISIS makes on it's selling of women and children. May it bring nothing but destruction upon those who use it.

Turkey Women Protest Murder of Woman Who 'Resisted Rape'

By Selin Girit
BBC News, Istanbul

A woman with a bullet hole painted on her forehead takes part in a demonstration against the murder of 20-year-old Ozgecan Aslan, who was killed after she resisted an alleged attempt to rape her in the southern city of Mersin, in Ankara on Saturday. Women on the protest argue that violence against women has become more acceptable in Turkey in recent years

Thousands of women in Turkey have protested at the murder of a young woman who allegedly resisted an attempt by a bus driver to rape her.

Police discovered the burnt body of Ozgecan Aslan, 20, in a riverbed in the city of Mersin, on Friday.

They have arrested three men in connection with her death - a minibus driver, his father and a friend.

The Turkish president and prime minister called Ms Aslan's family to offer their condolences.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised the family to hunt those responsible for the crime and punish them.

Ms Aslan, a psychology student, was kidnapped on Wednesday on her way home.

The driver allegedly tried to rape her. She reportedly fought him off with pepper spray, but was then stabbed to death. She was also hit on the head with an iron pipe.

The brutality of the murder caused an outcry across Turkey.

Thousands of women staged protests in several cities on Saturday, including Ankara, Istanbul, and Mersin - Ms Aslan's hometown in southern Turkey.

In Istanbul, women activists held two separate protests to show their anger at the murder.

Women hold pictures of murder victim Ozgecan Aslan
during protests in Istanbul on Saturday

Women hold banners reading "Ozgecan Aslan is our rebellion" during protests
against her murder in Istanbul on Saturday night

During the day, hundreds gathered behind a banner that read
"Enough, we will stop the murder of women!"

In the evening, the crowd got bigger. Thousands of women of all ages and walks of life poured out to the streets.

A young woman, Bulay Dogan, said Ms Aslan's murder scared her.

"I'm afraid, because the same thing could happen to me or my friends. But on the other hand, I'm furious too. How can they [the murder suspects] be so reckless to do something like this?" she asked.

Also on the protests was a gender studies academic who would only give her first name, Zeynep. She thought Ms Aslan's murder was of a political nature too.

"It is the result of the radical Islamic atmosphere created by the government. The men say that women should be conservative. They think if they are not conservative, they deserve this kind of violence," she said.

Zeynep is absolutely right! Under Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become more and more Islamicized. That's an odd statement for a Muslim country, but for most of the 20th century Turks maintained a largely secular government; Erdogan has increasingly made the Turkish government more Islamic, and with that many Turks are becoming more Islamic, especially the men who benefit from the misogynistic environment.

Women in Turkey have enjoyed much freedom from the oppressive aspect of Islam for a few generations now, and they are not likely to give up those freedoms without a fight. Ultimately, I believe the repression of women is one of Erdogan's goals in the Islamification of his own country.

Last November, Erdogan stated (at a women's conference in Istanbul), "You cannot put women and men on an equal footing, it is against nature." He also said feminists did not grasp the importance of motherhood in Islam. Mr Erdogan has previously urged women to have three children, and has lashed out against abortion and birth by Caesarean section.

His comments often seek to appeal to his pious core supporters, says the BBC's Mark Lowen in Istanbul, but they anger more liberal voters. Turks who have more secular views argue that the government's social policies are taking the country in a dangerous direction.

'Soaring violence'
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has its roots in political Islam and has been in power since 2002.

Women's rights organisations say violence against women has risen sharply in the last decade.

Last year alone, almost 300 women were killed at the hands of men and more than 100 were raped, according to local reports.

Sevda Bayramoglu from Women for Peace Initiative demanded new legislation to protect women from violence.

"Men kill and rape and torture women. The state, the 'men's state', is protecting them. We expect the parliament to stop this violence," she said.

Ms Aslan's murder may become a rallying cause for activists seeking to end violence against women in Turkey.

Selin Girit
BBC News, Istanbul