'It's enough to lean on the AKP after abusing a child'

"Don't stay silent against abuse" (Photo: Serra Akcan / csgorselarsiv.org)

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The final hearing of a child abuse case in the eastern Ağrı province was held at the Ağrı Heavy Penal Court today (March 30).

Nizamettin Ş., who has been remanded in custody, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for abusing a 10-year-old child. No reduction was applied to his sentence.

The Women and Children First Association released a statement after the hearing, saying that "This sentence is not enough, we will appeal the conclusion that 'the abuse remains at the level of molestation'."

Attorneys Nilda Baltalı and Hande Gündoğdu followed the case on behalf of the association.

"It exceeds molestation"

Baltalı said, "For it to be molestation, it should be sudden and intermittent. But there is no such abuse there. The act exceeds molestation.

"He tried to take the child's clothes off. The child said this while crying. And there are many cases that the defendant is ill-intentioned. He changed his testimony many times. Witnesses were silenced by being given money, they were pressured. We told these [the court].

"When the presiding judge pressed those witnesses a bit, they began talking. They had already stated in their two, three-page testimonies at the police station that the defendant kissed and touched the child.

"The defendant is trying to use his influence in Ağrı. Like being an AKP [the ruling Justice and Development Party] member, being very close to the mayor and being rich...

"His lawyers have already made their defense by saying, 'They are one of the important families of Ağrı.' By calling us and the family 'pro-HDP' [Peoples' Democratic Party], they portrayed it as a crime. When the witnesses started to speak in favor of us, they also called them pro-HDP.

"We didn't even talk about who the family voted for, we don't know. It's not the issue anyway, it's child abuse. The attorneys of the other party said that we made the issue political. Yes, it's political but from another perspective."

The effect of the İstanbul Convention

Baltalı noted that similar child abuse cases in Ağrı were generally closed and that the court played down the case after Turkey's withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention on combating violence against women.

"How much this decision will affect the judiciary will be seen from now on. This court board was one that would give better verdicts but we have observed that the decision of termination has softened them a little. The İstanbul Convention decision created a situation that these incidents are being played down.

"For example, the other party's attorneys were very aggressive today ... They said their client is an AKP member. We have also been saying that. We have been saying that he has been leaning on the AKP and using his influence. And they confessed this in today's hearing by saying, 'Our client is an AKP member.'

"This means these things have been normalized now. In an environment where the İstanbul Convention is abolished, it's enough to abuse a child and lean on the AKP. It is lucky for the defenders of abuse and attorneys of murderers of women.

"This is not a sentence that we wanted. Our appeal will be that there is a crime of abuse, the sentence of which cannot be less than 10 years. We will also appeal about false imprisonment because there was a child and there were sexual intentions. The sentence should be more than 20 years.

"We were expecting [a sentence] no less than 15 years. The opinion of the prosecutor's office is completely the same as our defense ... The presiding judge and a member said it was 'molestation.' The other member said he was thinking like us and put an annotation." (AÖ/VK)