Thinking about Halide’s case amid debates on İstanbul Convention

Click to read the article in Turkish

Living in Kağıthane, İstanbul, Halide Özpolat is one of the women who lost their lives as a result of male violence. I have been thinking about her since the day İstanbul Convention was opened to debate in Turkey.

I think about her as well as her daughter Zekiye Kaya, who said, "My father told my mother, 'I will first kill you, then get me certified as insane'."

I followed the case of arrested perpetrator Ali Rıza Özpolat for quite a long time as a reporter. According to his children's accounts, Ali Rıza Özpolat was systematically inflicting violence on his wife Halide.

Moreover, this violence was not only physical. He was also exerting psychological pressure on her, sometimes calling her "fat", sometimes fussing about "how bad she cooked."

Following each of these episodes of psychological pressure, Ali Rıza Özpolat would batter Halide to such an extent that one of these moments of violence was even taken down in the court minutes.

The daughter of Halide said that her mother started living in a room of the house to protect herself from her husband's violence. She would lock the door and put a chair in front of it so that he could not get in. Halide would not even go to the bathroom to avoid coming across Ali Rıza.

But, on May 13, 2016, Ali Rıza came home drunk again, forced Halide to open the door and shot her to death with a pump rifle. He immediately went to the police and said that he was mentally unstable.

The perpetrator said the same thing over and over again all through the hearings. He was sent to the Bakırköy Psychiatric Hospital for many times to get a medical report. As far as I can remember, the hospital gave at least two reports documenting that he was "mentally stable."

His male attorney tried to prolong the hearings. Women from "We Will Stop Femicides" platform also followed the hearings to ensure that the perpetrator would be penalized. Attorney İpek Bozkurt, over and over again, said that the perpetrator killed Halide in a premeditated murder.

He tried to deceive the court, got his sentence reduced

"İstanbul Convention keeps one alive"

Ali Rıza Özpolat had his final hearing in April 2018. The court board sentenced him to aggravated life imprisonment for "wilful killing."

In each one of his hearings, the perpetrator tried to deceive the court by misrepresentation. He did not express remorse even for once.

However, the court board gave him "good conduct time" and reduced his prison sentence due to "unjust provocation." In the end, Ali Rıza Özpolat has been sentenced to 20 years for killing Halide.

When we say "İstanbul Convention keeps one alive," we refer to situations like this: How Halide was killed and what happened in the judicial process...

How a woman does not have a place to take "shelter" after leaving her home due to male violence and how police tell her "such things happen between spouses" when she applies to them...

Halide was killed and the perpetrator was not given the sentence that he was supposed to get, but got his sentence reduced. Because İstanbul Convention was not implemented in its all aspects.

In Turkey, Halide and at least 20 women like her are killed every month while they could have been saved.

The fate of İstanbul Convention

"Women's solidarity keeps one alive"

I was curious about how the ongoing debates on İstanbul Convention affected male violence. To find an answer, I took a closer look at bianet male violence monitoring reports of the past three years.

Men killed 20 women in July 2018, 24 women in July 2019 and 32 women in July 2020, when İstanbul Convention was opened to debate.

Numbers show that violence is escalating

"Implement the Law no. 6284 against male violence"

CLICK - bianet is Monitoring Male Violence

Even opening the Convention to debate has led to an increase in male violence. Especially the July 2020 report has shown that there has been an increase in the number of both killed and injured women.

Another striking detail is that men have diversified their methods of killing. While they would mostly use knives in the past, they now also commit crimes such as strangling and burning and mostly use weapons.

As there is an increase in use of firearms in feminicides, eyes automatically turn to gun sales. Especially individual disarmament is a must and online sale of pump rifles must also be banned.

We, women, try to live, we try to exist despite everything. And what we expect from the state is to take action to ensure the full implementation of the Convention that protects us rather than abolishing it.

All women and children deserve it! (EMK/SD)

* Photos: Zeynep Kuray/Eylem Nazlıer