‘No matter what government says, İstanbul Convention saves lives’

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

Click to read the article in Turkish

İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener delivered a speech at the weekly Parliamentary group meeting of her party yesterday (March 23).

Akşener said that Turkey has been going through an administrative crisis. "Turkey is faced with unlawfulness and injustice. Turkey is faced with disrespect for the nation's will," she said, referring to Turkey's withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention in following words:

"What happened as of Saturday morning indicates how great a threat our 5,000-year state tradition faces in this monstrous system troubling us. We, who say, 'State forever', cannot stay silent in the face of the fact that our state has become putty in Erdoğan's hands."

CLICK - Turkey has withdrawn from İstanbul Convention

In a Presidential decision issued by ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 19, 2021 and published in the Official Gazette at midnight, Turkey has withdrawn from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence - or the İstanbul Convention.

'Laws have turned into trivial details'

Further in her speech, İYİ Party's Akşener protested that "the Constitution and the laws have become trivial details" in Turkey, briefly adding:

"Whatever Erdoğan pasha's heart desires happens, whatever his heart desires is done. They can terminate an international convention by themselves, just because they desire it. Just because they desire it, they can dismiss the head of the Central Bank, which derives its reputation from its independence, in the middle of the night."

Emphasis on excess of power

Akşener further stated: "According to the Constitution, Presidential decrees shall not be issued on issues foreseen to be enacted by laws. Presidential decrees cannot be issued on issues openly enacted by laws."

"But we see that he has been given additional powers by a Presidential decree," Akşener said, briefly adding the following: "Erdoğan, with this unlawful power disregarding the nation's will, terminated the İstanbul Convention in the middle of the night as he had the sudden wish to do it. This excess of power means usurping the rights of our nation.

"What is at stake here is the lives of women and health of children. The government might keep on watching violence, harassment and rape; İYİ Party is on the side of the nation without any 'but's. The government could say whatever it wants, we know that İstanbul Convention saves lives." (DŞ/SD)