Criminal complaint against CHP’s Nazlıaka over her statement on İstanbul Convention

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA) - Archive

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A group of New Welfare Party members have filed a criminal complaint against main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Women's Branch Chair Aylin Nazlıaka over her statement about the İstanbul Convention amid ongoing debates on Turkey's possible withdrawal from it.

Having held a press statement about the convention to address these debates, Nazlıaka now faces the possible charges of "insult", "inciting the public to enmity and hatred" and "degrading the public."

In her speech at the CHP headquarters in Ankara, Nazlıaka said, "Men are not troubled with the İstanbul Convention; the men who inflict violence on their spouses, partners or female strangers, the men who massacre, harass and rape women are troubled with the convention."

As reported by the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA), the members of the New Welfare Party went to the İstanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan yesterday (August 17) and submitted around 50 separate petitions of complaint to the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

In their petitions of complaint, the New Welfare Party members referred to Nazlıaka's above speech dated August 12. Citing the above remarks in their petitions, they have alleged that, with this statement, "Nazlıaka gravely insulted the ones criticizing the İstanbul Convention and degraded a certain segment of the society through the convention."

Accordingly, they have demanded that Nazlıaka be penalized for "insult, inciting the public to enmity and hatred and degrading the public."

Statement in front of the courthouse

Mahmut Gül, the Vice Chair of the New Welfare Party İstanbul Organization, also made a statement in front of the courthouse. 

In his speech there, Mahmut Gül argued that "when the İstanbul Convention was examined in depth, it could be seen that the essential values forming the societies were entirely rejected, a concept of gender was formed and an understanding of gender, apart from a difference of natural disposition between men and women, was adopted."

Referring to the words of Nazlıaka, he said, "Unlike what she said, what our opinion is based on is not perversion or being rapists, but on protecting the concept of family and the morality and morale of next generations."

Further arguing that "the countries belonging to the Western culture do not sign the convention for moral reasons and those who signed it keep on withdrawing from it," Gül said that "insults against them through the convention could not be accepted in any way at all." (EKN/SD)