In mid-March, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey would be withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty against domestic abuse of women. The other European signatories were all said to be “stunned” or “appalled” or “amazed” at this move, but if they had looked into the status and treatment of women in Islam, they would not have been surprised at Turkey’s withdrawal from the treaty, but only at its having joined the treaty in the first place. The initial Jihad Watch report on the withdrawal is here. An exploration of the reasoning behind the withdrawal, in an Uzay Bulut article exclusively for Jihad Watch, is here. And a report on the protest by Turkish women against Turkey’s withdrawal is here: “Turkish Women Protest Over Erdogan’s Decision to Exit Domestic Violence Treaty,” Algemeiner, March 28, 2021:
Several thousand women took to the streets in Istanbul on Saturday to demand Turkey reverse its decision to withdraw from an international treaty against domestic violence which it once championed.
Turkey did not ever “champion” the treaty against domestic violence. It merely signed it. The reason for that can only be understood in light of the time and place of its signing. In 2011, the members of the Council of Europe agreed to hold their meeting at which the treaty on domestic abuse would be formally adopted, in Istanbul. Turkey was pleased that its largest city was chosen, which it took as a sign of the Council of Europe’s favor. Turkey was then in the midst of negotiations to join the European Union, and rightly assumed that by signing the Council of Europe treaty, it would likely win points from its fellow signatories, all of whom were also members of the E.U. Besides, it would have been politically most awkward if Turkey, while hosting the meeting on the adoption of the treaty, had refused – alone of all the 47 delegations – to sign it itself.
President Tayyip Erdogan stunned European allies with last week’s, on March 20, announcement that Turkey was pulling out of the Istanbul Convention, named after the Turkish city where it was drafted in 2011.
The Europeans would not have been “stunned” had they been paying attention to Islam, the religion of 99% of Turks.
In the Qur’an, it is declared that “Allah has made men superior to women” (Sura 4:34). The same Qur’anic verse tells Muslim men that they may “beat” their wives if they merely suspect them of being “disobedient.” That is vague enough to provide a broad license for men to physically assault their wives. Some Muslim men do more than that – they believe they have a right to physically punish, and even to kill, their wives and daughters and sisters, should any of them “dishonor the family.” These so-called “honor killings” are not always punished in the most devout Muslim societies, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, while in other Muslim lands, punishment can be limited to a short prison sentence. Had those Europeans been aware of the Qur’anic claim that “men are superior to women,” that the Muslim holy book gives permission to men to “beat” their wives if they are “suspected of disobedience,” and had they known about all the ways that Islam reinforces the notion of female inferiority, or about the practice of honor killings, they might not have been surprised, much less “stunned,” at Turkey’s withdrawal from the treaty on domestic abuse.
The inferior status of women in Islam is not limited to Qur’an 4:34. Islam is full of commands that uphold that inferiority. In Islam, a woman’s testimony is worth only half that of a man. A daughter inherits only half that of a son. A husband may divorce his wife merely by reciting the triple-talaq; a wife has a much more difficult time to divorce her husband, including having to return property – the “mahr” – that she received from her husband at the time of marriage. The Qur’an sanctions polygyny – that is, one husband can take up to four wives – which devalues women. The barbaric practice of clitoridectomy, inflicted on baby girls, is meant to deprive Muslim women of sexual pleasure. Very young girls can be married off to much older men, of course without their consent, because Muhammad himself, the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil) and Model of Conduct (uswa hasana), consummated his marriage to little Aisha when she was nine years old. Ayatollah Khomeini had wanted to lower the marriageable age of girls to nine; in the end, the Iranians lowered the age only to 13, but men wanting to marry girls as young as nine can petition for approval.
And in Turkey, the Diyanet, the state religious body, issued a statement in January 2018 that according to Islamic law, the age of the beginning of adolescence for boys was 12 and for girls nine, and that those reaching the age of adolescence have the right to get married. That is another route to the same goal (of emulating Aisha and Muhammad): legitimizing marriages to nine-year-old girls by lowering the age for the “onset of puberty.”
Turkey was one of the first signatories and women say their safety has been jeopardized by Erdogan’s move against the European treaty.
Amid a heavy police presence, protesters gathered in an Istanbul seafront square waving purple flags and chanting slogans including “Murders of women are political.” One placard read, “Protect women, not the perpetrators of violence.”
Withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention is a disaster for millions of women and children living in this country,” Amnesty International Turkey Director Ece Unver told Reuters, calling for Ankara to reverse its decision.
World Health Organization data shows 38% of women in Turkey are subject to violence from a partner in their lifetime, compared with 25% in Europe.
It is perfectly understandable that women in Muslim Turkey endure violence at a rate 50% higher than that of women in non-Muslim Europe. Qur’an 4:34 allows men to “beat” their wives if they even suspect them of “disobedience.” That sets the tone for male-female relations.
Estimates of femicide rates in Turkey, for which there are no official figures, have roughly tripled over the last 10 years, according to a monitoring group. So far this year 87 women have been murdered by men or died under suspicious circumstances, it said….
The rise in killing of females in Turkey proceeds pari passu with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s project of re-Islamizing Turkey. The secularists have been defeated, and nearly 200,000 have lost their jobs under Erdogan – professors, lawyers, magistrates, university rectors, journalists. Erdogan has amplified the role of religion by greatly expanding the number of Imam Hatip schools, which began as vocational schools training preachers, but now provide some instruction in secular subjects, but with a heavy dose of religion. There are now more than 4,200 Imam Hatip schools, with about 1.5 million students; in 1974, there were only 34,000 students in Imam Hatip schools. It is in these schools that Turks learn the proper – i.e., Islamic — and therefore inferior, status of girls and women.
The protesters’ concerns were echoed by Ankara’s Western allies, who denounced what they described as a baffling and unwarranted decision which risked undermining the rights of Turkish women.
All those Council of Europe members were “stunned” when Turkey withdrew from the treaty; they found the decision “baffling.”
Where have we heard those words used recently? From the police in Boulder, Colorado, who have declared themselves “baffled” as they continue, weeks after the mass murder, to “look for a motive” that can possibly explain why a man named Ahmad Al Issa, born in Syria but raised in America, murdered ten people he did not know. The police and the FBI look and look and do not find what prompted him. And similarly puzzled, amazed, flabbergasted, baffled, stunned, are the European nations at Turkey for pulling out of the Council of Europe Treaty on Domestic Abuse. No one can figure out why.
They should be reminded of Islam’s stand on “domestic abuse” and on the status of women, as explained in the two paragraphs above. Given the facts about the inferior status of women in Islam, no one in the Council of Europe should have been “stunned” or “baffled” by Turkey’s withdrawal from the treaty. And the fact that in Turkey there were only a “few thousand” women and girls who came out to protest the government’s decision – in a city with more than 15 million people – shows both a lack of support for their view among the general population, and the fear that Erdogan’s ruthless regime, that has not hesitated to discharge, or imprison, its perceived enemies, has instilled in so many of its citizens.
That Turkish withdrawal from the Council of Europe’s treaty on domestic abuse is one more reason why the Council should expel Turkey as “not sharing the fundamental values” of the organization’s other members. Islam need not be mentioned by name, but it will be clear what it is that has made Turkey, reverting to pre-Kemalist type, the “odd man out” of Europe. And from that decision another should flow, this one by the European Union, which can finally put paid to the interminable negotiations with Turkey over its possible entry as a member. It simply does not belong in any kind of European organization; Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been re-Islamizing Turkey so profoundly that it now has little in common with the civilization of Europe. Who needs 80 million more Muslims inside the E.U. tent, and traveling freely through the E.U.’s Schengenland? Let it go.
Michael Copeland says
Aah Turkey……… where a teenage girl disappeared who had spoken to a boy at school (not permitted). Her body was later found under some fresh concrete next to the chicken yard. She had been buried alive, her hands tied behind her back.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8501181.stm
Michael Copeland says
There times she had been to the police complaining that she had been beaten. Three times they sent her back to her family.
Correction: source says she had never been to school.
What is to stop more of this now that Turkey has withdrawn from the treaty?
john smith says
Horrific story Michael.
gravenimage says
*Hideous*, Michael–this poor girl. How many more are there like her in Turkey and all over the Muslim world?
born saturday says
its surprising that some, have still got the idea of turkey not being just another muslim country but being westernised and civilized… this was another trick of erdogan in his first years of his ruling, exactly when he was negotiating for entry or free visa in europe … ofcourse turkey in that period managed to attract investments and loans from the eu countries with which he blackmails europe now… countries like spain most of all will be ruined alongside turkey had something happened to their economy… in this way, erdogan managed to addict european economies to turkey before he turned to make turkey an islamic chalifate, hence ensuring its survival…. the european banks have invested a whole lot on turkey and few in europe would accept sanctions against turkish economy, for its violations and provocative moves and rhetoric against greece and cyprus, including illegal researches and illegal drilling in foreign waters….
Walter Sieruk says
Reforms in form of the furtherance of female rights ,for both girls and women against domestic abuse will not happen because President Erdogan of Turkey is a devote Muslim and Islam is a religion of brutal harsh oppress misogyny
oskar says
Kemalism is destroyed in Turkey. There is no real Kemalism left. Those stupid political parties who claim to be “Kemalists” turned their backs on Ataturk secularism and sided with Erdogan as they together attacked the supposed “coup-plotter Gulenists”. They call the failed military intervention as “the tracherous coup attempt.” Erdogan government blacklisted over 100.000 students from kindergarten to 12th grade on “Gulenist terror links.” And still all of the “Kemalist” opposition sided with Erdogan. Persecution of the “Gulenist terrorists” is condoned both internally and internationally. Why I am writing this on here? Because there is an ugly game with an evil purpose, that is being played on Turkey. It directly affects the true dissidents “Gulenists” – not the fake “Kemalists” of today – and the women in Turkey just getting their pays from this evil game.
gravenimage says
The Gulentists are also pious Muslims–but it is true that Erdogan was largely using them as a bogey man to crack down on *all* of his political opponents.
oskar says
True, Gravenimage. I mean all of the opposition falls to Erdogan’s scare tactic about Gulen Movement, just because they are scared to labeled as “terrorists”. It is true that the Gulenists are pious Muslims. I remember the Gulenists were visiting the churches and synagogues in Turkey to promote inter-religious tolerance. And their leaders, Fethullah Gulen, about more than ten years ago has offered his condolances for the Armenian Genocide. But in the end they are still pious Muslims who support Jihad and bigotry. I remember one of his sermons which he said something like this very long time ago before 2000 “It is a sin for women to display even a strand of her hair to other men” though his stances on it seems changed. Anyway, even Kemalism seems like a better ideology when compared to these two Islamic ideologies.
gravenimage says
He has also condemned Jews for being “crafty”, though.
And he didn’t mean good at hobbies, either…
Infidel says
Honestly, Kemalism never had a chance. Reason is simple: Turkish history (talking about pan-Turkic entities here from Söğüt to Balashagun to Agra) for some 900 years is the story of how they spread islam by the sword in 2 continents – Asia and Europe. It may have started w/ their defeat and islamization by the Arabs in the 7th century, but after the 9th century, there were several Turkic empires – the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, Qhwarezmids, Qara-khanids and so on, who established empires that populated much of Turkistan, Afghanistan, the Indian sub-continent, Iran, Anatolia, the Balkans, Syria, Egypt, Arabia and so on. And all of these empires were champions of islam, and major islamizing forces in Europe as well as the Indian sub-continent (Arab influence never went beyond Sind)
Ask the descendants of these people to reject that inheritance, w/ nothing to replace it, and what one gets is Erdogan. In fact, what has happened in Turkey will sooner or later spread to Turkistan: it’s already overtaken Azerbaijan. All those Turkic countries would want something to look up to, and they already have a clue: there’s a reason that Tamerlane’s statue replaced that of Marx or Lenin in Tashkent. And a people who celebrate a mass genocidal ruler of the 14th century – what does one think they’ll ultimately have in a leader?
gravenimage says
All Kemalism could do was partially sideline Islam for a time. But most Turks are pious Muslims, so “Islamism” always appealed to most.
Infidel says
In reality, islam is almost as much a Turkish cult as much as it is an Arab cult
oskar says
One of the main reasons that Kemalism has been destroyed is could be the very few number of non-muslim population. Kemalists, instead of allying with the non-muslim native inhabitants of Anatolia and only *Turkifying* them but *not* islamizing, they forcibly expelled them. If they did allied with them there would be a significant Turkic-speaking non-muslim Christian ethnic group in Anatolia as with the Gagauz of Moldova and Chuvash Turks of Russia. Today those who claim to be Kemalists are mostly muslims. And your article is very enlightening, I agree with you. Kemalism is dead. It’s gone with its interesting philosophy…
gravenimage says
Ataturk himself did nothing as the Armenian Genocide continued under his aegis with the terrible destruction of Smyrna.
b.a. freeman says
it is quite likely that the “coup” was just a false-flag operation, in which erdogan’s minions encouraged a few junior officers to revolt. of course the “coup” failed, having few participants, let alone followers, among the citizenry. *THAT* is what gave erdogan the “grounds” for purging the military, and then the rest of society, of those who are not islamic enough for his poisonous taste. in fact, i’ll be that within 10 years or so, every single pilot who fled to greece after the “coup” failed will have been murdered by agents of the turkish government.
James Lincoln says
b.a. freeman,
Interesting analysis, sounds plausible…
gravenimage says
Quite likely.
gravenimage says
Turkish Women Demand Erdogan Rejoin Treaty Against Domestic Abuse
………………
This Treaty was even based in Turkey–it is known as the Istanbul Convention–which did not prevent the appalling Erdogan from pullkng out of it. After all, what is more Islamic than beating women–save perhaps “Honor Killing” them?
jewdog says
Turkey has become an islamofascist monstrosity and should not be in NATO, particularly since it bought the S-400 air defense system from Russia, has helped ISIS and Iran, and has openly hosted high-level members of Hamas. It should be obvious that the alliance between Turkey, Russia, North Korea, China and Iran is a very dangerous and powerful coalition that could easily form the nexus of our adversaries in a world war.
James Lincoln says
jewdog,
According to Wikipedia, at least on paper:
“NATO constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.”
But, as you have accurately pointed out, Turkey is now aligning itself with Russia, North Korea, China and Iran.
So, Turkey is now aligning itself with enemies of NATO – and they have threatened Greece, a fellow NATO member.
And Turkey, on its current trajectory , will eventually become another Pakistan.
So…
If Turkey remains in NATO, NATO itself will become meaningless.
Am I missing something?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO
Infidel says
Honestly, NATO became meaningless once the Soviet Union came apart. Yeah, some Eastern European countries like Poland and Hungary may have joined it, but NATO should have taken Russia’s application for membership while Yeltsin was still running the joint, b’cos that would have refreshed their coverage right up to the Pacific, and today, they may have been confronting China
And yeah, Turkey’s membership makes NATO as worthless as the UN
James Lincoln says
Sounds about right, Infidel.
OLD GUY says
He’s a dictator, this is just another move towards his domination over the population of Turkey. Erdogan wants the Islamic domination of the world, with him as the leader. He will make HITLER look like a saint.