Campaign Against İstanbul Convention in Pro-AKP Circles

The İstanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the most comprehensive international agreement on violence against women, was opened to signature in May 2011 and came into effect as of August 1, 2014.

Turkey in November 2011 became the first signatory state that approved the convention in its parliament, with the support of all four parties that were represented at the time.

About eight years later, with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) still holding power, the convention has become the subject of a debate within Islamist and conservative circles, after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president and the leader of the AKP, reportedly said that it can be "annulled."

In an iftar (fast-breaking in Ramadan) event he attended at the Haliç Congress Center in İstanbul on June 1, Erdoğan said the convention "is not Nas [a section of the Quran] and not a standard for them," the BirGün and Akit newspapers reported. Erdoğan also said he understood the discomfort against the gender equality projects and the convention might be "annulled," according to the reports.

The gender equality projects that had been running in schools and universities were canceled earlier in the year by their respective authorities, the Ministry of National Education and the Council of Higher Education.

Since then, newspapers, civil society organizations and public figures in Islamic and conservative circles have been calling on the government to withdraw from the convention. Their arguments are mostly centered around "protection of the family."

Several columnists of pro-government Yeni Akit and Yeni Şafak wrote on the debate. Yusuf Kaplan, a columnist for the Yeni Şafak, said in a tweet on July 8 that the biggest threat Turkey had faced since the 19th century was the "disintegration of the family" and the protection of the family became "an issue of national security."

He also called on the government to cancel the projects run by the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Family and the Women and Democracy Association (KADEM) that "caused the disintegration of families."

The KADEM, founded on March 8, 2013, is vice-chaired by Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar, the daughter of President Erdoğan. It has drawn criticism from conservative circles because of its joint works with feminist organizations such as the Mor Çatı Women's Shelter Foundation and the Women's Solidarity Foundation in the Subcommittee of Monitoring and Effective Implementation of the İstanbul Convention, which is formed by the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services.

Ergün Yıldırım, another columnist for Yeni Şafak, said in his article on July 14 that the İstanbul Convention "represents a total disengagement from the classical Turkish woman, Turkish family structure, classical Islamic family and the values of the Muslim women." He said it reflects the "post-modern non-familialism, the life of extramarital partnership and feminist point of view towards women that Europe has developed in the past 30 years." 

In response to criticism, the KADEM said it couldn't stay silent anymore against "the smear campaign" against it and it always worked for the good of the women, the family and the society. It added that using the notion of "gender equality" didn't mean defending homosexuality and it prefered the notion of "gender justice" over "gender equality" as the latter "cannot address the innate differences between men and women". 

The Yeni Akit published an article on July 15, titled, "The İstanbul Convention Must be Immediately Canceled," accusing the convention of "doing the groundwork for the justification of homosexual heresy and the disintegration of the family under the disguise of preventing violence against women."

The Seven Crescent Association said, "We must withdraw from the İstanbul Convention before the family collapses," in a statement it released on July 9.

"The second existential threat that damages our family structure is the notion of 'sexual orientation'. What this notion implies is very clear. This is a language that evokes and justifies different 'choices' other than the genders of male and female," it said.

Abdülkadir Karaduman, an MP for the Felicity Party (SP), which shares the same Islamic roots with the AKP, has become the first active politician to join the campaign. In a press conference he held at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), he described the convention as "a monstrosity that was written to make our family structure collapse" and called on the government to withdraw from it. 

After his reported remarks fired up the campaign against the convention, Erdoğan has yet to make a public statement on the issue while conservative and Islamic groups continue to put the pressure on the government to withdraw from the convention. (VK)