Stop the murders of trans persons in Turkey!
- by: LGBT Forum Progress
- recipient: The Government of Turkey
Never Hush, Never Share the Crime! (Sessiz Kalma Suça Ortak Olma!)
Dear all,
As we all know LGB and especially T people in Turkey are facing severe problems in everyday life.
Transgender persons are the most exposed to these problems such as violence on the streets, bulling, verbal violence and other forms of discrimination. But the most chocking fact is the murders that have happened in the past few months that all of you have probably heard of.
One of the last cases is the case of young girl named TuÄŸçe. She was shot by a bullet and murdered in a car in KarabaÄŸlar town in Ä°zmir. She was only 23 years old. Her body was unrecognizable because of the assault she was exposed to.
Information we got from our friends from Turkey few months ago shocked us that around 8 transpeople are being murdered each year. This hate needs to be stopped!
Second transgender person has been killed in the same week in which TuÄŸçe was killed. She was stabbed around 40 times to her death. Her name was Nüket. After few days we heard from our friends from Turkey that the murderer was caught. After being questioned he tried to justify himself by stating that he lost his consciousness. We all know that this is an obvious lie, used by almost every trans murderer. He stated that she invited him to her apartment and he came. Then, they argued about the money that he would give to her. Then he stated that he don't remember that he used the knife that many times, saying that he lost his consciousness!?
As these two unfortunate murders are not enough just a while they happened there was another incident towards the transgender person that happened in Maltepe – Istanbul. Namely the incident involved a police officer who shot a transgender sex worker in the back after he grabbed her arm forcefully because she refused to pay a fine.
These incidents are outrageous and we need to put a stop on them!
Even if we are from Montenegro and we do not live in Turkey we sympathize with all of them who are paying the price of being different! We would like you to do the same.
Therefore we have decided to make a protest action in front of the Turkish Embassy in Montenegro on 16th of May related to International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on the 17th of May (IDAHO) and through this protest express our sympathies with aim to point out the need of change in respecting human rights of LGB and especially T people in Turkey.
As we want to make this visible on international level we use this opportunity to invite all of you who are interested to join us in our common goal to improve the respecting of LGBT Human Rights, not only in Turkey but in the region and show our solidarity towards each other.
As our colleagues from Turkey have said before: “We cannot remain silent about being murdered and about the murderers’ being released! We do not “get used to, get familiar with” and cannot stand the murders of trans individuals and we stand against the system which “normalizes, internalizes and gets inured to them” in the hands of the media and the society!”
Our plan is to make joint letter from all the interested sides (organizations/individuals) that will be delivered to all the Turkish Embassies in the involved countries (addressed to Ambassadors and the President of Turkey) in which we will point out the problems that transgender people experience every day.
The purpose of this letter is to make a statement that will draw attention of the governments, media and decision makers to the ever growing problems of the LGBTIQ community and also on the better relations and strong solidarity of the LGBTIQ community/organizations in the region and in the World.
LGBT Forum Progress is planning to go in front of the Turkish Embassy with joint letter, rainbow flags, framed photos of the murdered TuÄŸçe and Nüket, posters, banners made by our volunteers and we will bring flowers for paying the respect to the deceased ones and for all of those victims who suffered the same or similar discrimination just based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
All of you who are willing to participate will receive the draft of the letter in the following days and the content of the letter will be open for the suggestions that you may all have until the 15th of May. Please send us confirmation of your participation or support as soon as you can so we can include you in our mailing list.
If you are interested to participate in joint action and to make Turkish government aware of problems of LGBT community in their country, and help our friends and colleagues in Turkish LGBTIQ organizations, please let us know and we can organize this action/protest together on the same day.
Please forward this mail to all of those organizations and individuals who by your opinion would want to participate and give their support.
Turkish Government
Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Dear Mr Erdogan,
As we recognize Turkey as a country that tents to be a member of the European Union and respects values of modern democratic society we felt the urge to point out the problems that certain minority groups such as transgender persons facing with.
Discrimination, humiliation, harassment, physical and verbal violence are just some of the situations that LGB and especially T persons are facing with on daily basis. But the most shocking fact is that the transgender persons are being killed on the streets of Turkey just because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
We want to draw your attention on the three last death cases that happened recently:
1. The case of young girl named TuÄŸçe. She was shot by a bullet and murdered in a car in KarabaÄŸlar town in Ä°zmir. She was only 23 years old. Her body was unrecognizable because of the assault she was exposed to.
2. The case of transgender person that has been killed in the same week in which TuÄŸçe was killed. She was stabbed around 40 times to her death. Her name was Nüket.
3. The case of transgender person that has been shot in the back after police officer grabbed her arm forcefully because she refused to pay a fine. This case happened in Maltepe – Istanbul.
Even if we are from Montenegro and we do not live in Turkey we sympathize with all of transgender persons who are paying the price of being different!
We would like to emphasize the fact LGB and T are equal member of Turkish society.
In order to make this issue more visible , organizations and individuals from all around the World joined together to write this letter with a purpose of raising awareness of this particular problem.
We want to believe that government of Turkey and yourself will do all that is in your power to prevent any kind of hate speech and violence from happening.
To make this letter more functional we have made the list of approaches that we expect that government of Turkey needs to fulfill in order to make LGBT and especially T persons feel equal part of the Turkish society.
By applying these demands Turkey will be recognized as a country that tends to improve quality of life of all its citizens without exceptions.
We urge Turkish Government to fulfill following requests:
1. Full implementation of Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, revision of the Turkish Law on Domestic Violence fully based on and in parallel of the CoE Convention; including "gender identity". (Turkey is the first country ratifying the CoE Convention, while after few months enacted a law which doesn't include gender identity and/or expression as one of the grounds for discrimination).
2. Enact the anti-discrimination code which waits for discussion in the parliament through adding the phrase of "gender identity" as one of the grounds.
3. Prepare and enact hate crimes legislation in collaboration with the civil society circles and adding "gender identity" as one of the grounds not to be discriminated.
4. As required by OSCE-ODIHR, Turkey should keep the statistics of gender identity-based hate crimes/murders as part of the work of the General Directorate of Security and share it with the public when asked.
5. All laws, which are intentionally used against trans persons like the Law on Misdemeanors, the Traffic Law, Turkish Penal Code, Law on Prostitution, Law on Public Health, etc. should be revised in a way to eliminate all vague terms like "exhibitionism", "obscenity", etc.
6. Existing legislation on "prostitution" should be changed in parallel with the demands of all sex worker groups in the country, decriminalizing all acts to do sex work.
7. Establish an employment strategy with full inclusion of transgender persons.
8. Start a program with the aim of training all relevant law-enforcement bodies, like the police and the judiciary, for sensitizing these institutions for the rights of transgender persons.
9. Fully investigate all incidents where police officers used ill-treatment and torture against transgender persons and sentence the perpetrators.
10. Start a public campaign to sensitize the citizens against all forms of violence against transgender persons.
11. Stop the policy of the police of arbitrary arrests and fines against transgender persons who are sex workers.
12. End the police of the judiciary of decreasing the sentences of perpetrators of transgender murders or attackers.
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