THE INTERNATIONAL PROTESTING SYMBOL OF GLOBAL FEMICIDE 

Click here to open Femicides Europe part 2 (part one - introduction - is below)

Considering the number of global femicides that take place I divided this special in continents and when you click on one of it
a page will open of which that page will focus on different countries that are schockingly enough as an 'example' and to
quotes from different magazines or broadcasts in online html format and if you want to read more you can click on the link. I am only
human and I had to make 'at random' choices but I do so to avoid me going crazy because it is so hard to accept reality
 but it's there and still I've read a lot of them to be able to give you a as good as possible insight in this global atrocity.
Before readers will actually start reading this special I can hear them thinking:
'This is a far from my bed show'. Well, maybe or maybe not because, and I'd really hope it
will never happen but i.e. if it already happened, to your sister, wife, another relative the more
reason to act! If you already do I apologize and maybe you can contact me at
info@cryfreedom.net
I however made this special and tribute to all the victims and their family.
It must be very hard for them.

But Europe is big and that's why I divided it in South Europe; West Europe and East Europe
and last but not least the Turkey, not European but given their (also) 'co-predators' attitide I'll include them.

If you feel like you cannot read further about the GLOBAL FEMICIDES
it is understandable.
In this case please click on INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2021 PART 10

Thank you
Gino d'Artali
Investigative indepth journalist and radical feminist
PS.: I'm also a poet and writer and at present I'm writing the
autobiography of GIANNA my mother (1931-1997) AND GINO d'ARTALI
(alive and ragingly kicking!) covering 15 years in hell,
titled <RATS AND FURIOUS FLOWERS>

GLOBAL FEMICIDES - EUROPE


Since 2017: Total number = 66.000 femicides in Europe. EU 26 countries
Today I'll try to kind of 'glue stories' as well as reports from NGO's and governmental organisations and media reportings together.

But first this: Nov. 25th. 2021 International day against femicide.

BREAKING AND TEARING YOUR HEART APART:
Turkey is not a part of the European Union but still this needs our attention:

Jinha
Womens News Agency
11 Nov 2022
<<Van: 15 women die under suspicious circumstances in 10 months
<Turkey has turned into a women's cemetery> Star Women's Association member Serhat Guevenc drew attention to the increasing rate of femicide and suspicious deaths of women in Van and reacted to the normalization of the deaths. Wan - At least 275 women were killed in Turkey in the first 10 months of 2022, according to the report released by the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. At least a woman is killed in Turkey. Rate of femicide cases in Turkey increased by 88% in October, compared to October 2021. One of the cities, where the number of deaths of women increased, is the city of Van. 15 women died under suspicious circumstances in the last 10 months. In an interview with NuJINHA, Star Women's Association member Serhat Guevenc emphasized that the number of women, who apply to the association, is climbing in the last period. <At least three women apply to our association every day,> she said.
'Turkey has turned into a women’s cemetery'
Stating that Turkey has turned into a women's cemetery,> Sertha Guevenc said that at least a woman dies under suspicious circumstances every day in Turkey. <Every day, women apply to us and say they are subjected to violence,> she told us.
'Deaths of women are normalized'
She added, <Every day, about three women, who are subjected to violence, sexual abuse and want to file for divorce, apply to our association to demand support. Our society has been desensitized about the deaths of women and deaths of women are normalized.>
<There are many factors that lead to femicide and suspicious deaths of women> Serhat Güvenç told us that at least a woman is killed or dies under suspicious circumstances in the city. Speaking about the reasons behind the deaths of women, she said, <There are many factors that lead to femicide and suspicious deaths of women. Social and economic situations are two of these factors. Men think there are leaders and no one can oppose them. Many women apply to us because they are cheated by their husbands. Some men get involved in many sexual intercourse with more than one woman and when women oppose this, they are subjected to violence or driven to suicide.> Star Women's Association is a non-governmental organization providing legal, psychological and financial support to women victims of violence. <The number of applications to our association is too high to deal with. Sometimes, we do not know which application we should give priority to. About three women apply to our association every day. 90 percent of the women who applied to our association in the last two months demanded legal support to file for divorce. Women who oppose to violence want to divorce,> Serhat Guevenc said.
'Men are encouraged by society'
The association also carries out awareness-raising activities to end gender-based violence. Speaking about the increasing number of women, who died under suspicious circumstances, Serhat Guevenc said, <Recently, many women have died under suspicious circumstances in the city. Last month, a pregnant woman, mother of two, died under suspicious circumstances. Her family claimed that she killed herself because she suffered from 'psychological problems'. Unfortunately, our society sees the deaths of women as normal. Men are encouraged by society. We carry out awareness-raising activities to change this mentality.>
The names of 15 women, who died under suspicious circumstances in the city in the last 10 months, are as follows: >>
and can be read here as also the article continues here:
https://jinhaagency1.com/en/actual/van-15-women-die-under-suspicious-circumstances-in-10-months-32250


Now and before I continue I'll start with femicides ITALIA
Why: Allow me to quote myself from the above link:
11 Jan 2022

Me being an Italian I especially wanted to investigate the situation of femicides in Italy and below are my findings although nothing much could be found of the year 2021 as if there were no femicides in the past year. But I'll keep digging 'till I expose predators i.e. femicides that took place in 2021 and update periodically this page.
At the end of the page you can read my personal conclusion.
Thank you,
Gino d'Artali
 
And now let's start or continue with Western Europe:

Untill shortly I called myself an investigative journalist which I've always been since long way back but then I also called myself an indepth journalist. investigating global femicide and I'm from now on I'm Gino d'Artali, an investigative, in-depth journalist.

And why am I saying this Global Femicides series, in the part covering Europe?
Well as you may know the European counts 26 countries, geograffically still divided as West and East, apart from the South.
But over the past days and investigating Eastern countries I came to the following:

Soviet Satellite States during the cold war:
Communist countries during the Cold War can be divided into Soviet satellite states, pro-Soviet and non-aligned communist countries. The Soviet satellite states that were completely under the influence of the Soviet Union were: the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Albania.
Today the last 5 mentioned countries do no ratify the 'Istanbul Convention - No to violence against women (Founded . The Istanbul Convention is the first international legally binding instrument to combat violence against women and domestic violence.' LINK It was opened for signature 10 years ago in Istanbul, Turkey. Among them is also Turkey of which president Erdogan pulled out of the Istanbul Convention. Keep reading 'till you find TURKEY again.

But during investigating the 5 countries about femicide a very strange thing occured, all reported 'only' about between 47-52 femicides in 2020. It's obvious that something is 'fishy' here but I cannot put my finger on what. Still, it stinks!!!


Now let's have a look/read at how some other European countries are doing:

POLAND
Opinion by Gino d'Artali:
On one side it is part of the European Union. The other side of the coin is that it, in its politics, is very much Russia oriented i.e. any news about femicides does not even reach the Polish news let alone the freedom of the press that is, more and more, being gaged. In my opinion it (still) is a sattelite state of Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/11/polish-government-media-bill-latest-move-silence-critics

CROATIA:
OECD dev
SIGI value
2019

<<a) Violence against women
There is no law addressing violence against women including specific provisions for investigation,
prosecution and punishment of the perpetrator and protection and support services for victims.
There are 18 women’s shelters, out of which seven are led by women’s NGOs (EIGE, 2016).
Additionally, there is a free national call centre for victims of criminal offences and minor offences
(EIGE, 2016).
Violence against women continue to be underreported and stigmatised in Croatia (EIGE, 2016). Data
from 2014 shows that 1 in 5 women in Croatia have experienced physical and/or sexual violence and
31% of women have been victims of physical, sexual or psychological violence (EIGE, 2016). Femicide
is occurring at a relatively high rate in Croatia, as estimations show that 23% of all murder victims are
women murdered by a male member of their family (Human Rights Council, 2013). A Femicide Watch
is being implemented by the Ombudsperson for Gender Equality, which would closely monitor the
occurrence of women’s homicide by their husbands or former and current partners (Ombudsperson
for Gender Equality, 2017).>>
Read more here:
https://www.genderindex.org/wp-content/uploads/files/datasheets/2019/HR.pdf

Note from Gino d'Artali: a total of 33 women where victim of femicide.
In 2000 it increased to 101.

HUNGARN: According to the ohchr the number of femicide victims in 1918 and '19 was 48 and the same total in 2020.
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: something is 'fishy' about these numbers. ohchr or not I simply do not trust i.e. believe the 'numbers' also because for women's sake we are talking about lives lost and as an act of atrocity!

Review of Cases of Femicide in the
Western Balkans Region
2020 Baseline Report
Prepared by
United Women Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in cooperation with National Albanian Women’s
Empowerment Network and Gender Alliance for Development Centre (Albania), Kosovo Women’s
Network (Kosovo), Network against Violence against Women (North Macedonia), Women's right centre Montenegro and and Autonomous Women’s Centre (Serbia):
Click here to read the full report:
https://www.womenngo.org.rs/images/femicid/2020_Review_of_Cases_of_Femicide_in_the_WB_Region.pdf

Specifically about the femicides in Serbia:
Autonomous Women's Center, BelgradeReport written by:
Vedrana Lacmanovic
FEMICIDE – MURDERS OF WOMEN IN SERBIA
Quantity and narrative report from January 1st to December 31st 2020
Read more here:
https://www.womenngo.org.rs/images/femicid/FEMICIDE-Quantity_and_narrative_report_2020.pdf

NETHERLANDS:

ONE WORLD
24 Nov 2020
Joyce Brekelmans - Hasna El Maroudi

<< IN THE NETHERLANDS A WOMAN DIES EVERY 10 DAYS AS A RESULT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
The Netherlands has a femicide problem. We often see femicide as a problem of distant countries with a 'macho culture'. But also in the Netherlands women are murdered by their (ex-) partners. More often than you might think. 'Every ten days a woman dies here as a result of domestic violence.'

<It felt like I was a fraud. On the one hand I set up a feminist collective, on the other I was beaten up.> Experience expert and founder of the platform Pisswife Tessel ten Zweege (21) explains why she never reported her. <I was very ashamed because I had become a victim. He had been in contact with the police before, but he didn't care. So I also knew that a restraining order wouldn't help. Control over me was more important to him. I think that in the months that he was with me I always feared for my life.> That fear does not come out of the blue. Every day, according to the United Nations (UN), an average of 137 women are killed worldwide by a family member, partner or ex-partner. It is a conservative estimate, because by no means all murders are counted. Moreover, many countries do not keep track of the relationship between the victim and the murderer at all. The UN therefore speaks of 'the tip of the iceberg'.
<THE NETHERLANDS HAS PER HEAD OF THE POPULATION MORE FEMICID CASES THAN SPAIN OR ITALY>>
Read more here:
https://www.oneworld.nl/lezen/seks-gender/feminisme/nederland-heeft-een-femicide-probleem/

Note by Gino d'Artali: The article is in Dutch of which the above quote is translated by me. Still, if you master Dutch or have a link to an online automatic translater website it is worthwhile the effort and reading it.
97.000

FRANCE:

BBC News
By Rosie Blunt
7 September 2019

<<Femicide: The murders giving Europe a wake-up call.

On 1 September, a resident of Cagnes-sur-Mer in the south of France spotted a foot sticking out from a pile of rubbish, branches and an old quilt.
It was the disfigured body of a woman, the victim of a brutal attack. Her partner denies her murder.
Salomé, 21, could be France's 100th victim this year of "femicide" - usually defined as the murder of a woman by a partner, ex-partner or family member. The day after Salomé's body was found, a 92-year-old woman was caned to death by her 94-year-old husband.
Within hours, the French government announced a raft of measures to protect women from domestic violence. Other European countries have already reacted to a crime that knows no borders or social class, but the picture across the continent is mixed.
President Emmanuel Macron launched the French campaign at a national domestic violence hotline centre, but received a reality check when he listened in on a call.
A woman, who had endured decades of abuse from her violent husband, had finally built up the courage to leave him. She had asked a police officer to accompany her home so she could collect some belongings, but the officer refused, insisting he needed a judicial order to intervene.
He was wrong, but the helpline had no legal authority and the operator could only direct the victim to a support group.
President Macron shook his head in frustration. <Does that happen often?> he asked the operator. <Oh yes,> she responded, <More and more.>

Homicides by intimate partners are overwhelmingly committed by men against women. According to the most recent figures of such murders, the French rate is far from the highest in the EU.>>
Read more here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49586759

SPAIN:

Photo: Candles, shoes and banners sit on the ground at a protest camp set up by women who are holding a demonstration to show opposition to gender-based violence in Madrid [Sergio Barrenechea/EPA]

2021:
42 femicides. For more info read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_violence_against_women_in_Spain#Gender_violence_murders_6

The Christian science monitor
By Colette Davidson Correspondent
14 July 2021

<<Gender-based murder stats differ starkly in France and Spain. Why?

Ana Bella Estévez had survived years of verbal, physical, and mental abuse at the hands of her husband when one night, he asked her to sign a document that said she wouldn’t divorce him even if he continued to hit her. That was when everything changed for her. <I went to a center for women’s information just to see if I could get out of my marriage. A woman asked me questions like does your husband yell at you? Yes. Does he throw things at you? Yes,> says Ms. Estévez. <It’s incredible, surrealistic, but until then I never realized I was a victim of domestic violence.> Ms. Estévez drove to a shelter in nearby Sevilla with her four children and never looked back. Now, 20 years later, she is fighting against domestic violence in Spain with her Fundación Ana Bella, a women’s network of 16,000 members around the world that connects survivors with those undergoing abuse. Her organization and others, alongside government initiatives, have helped make Spain one of the leaders in tackling gender-based violence, particularly by reducing gender-based murders over the past decade. But where Spain has succeeded in decreasing gender-based murders, neighboring France has struggled. Since the beginning of the year, the country has counted 58 femicides, or murders of women based on their gender, one of the highest tallies in Western Europe. The stark difference in statistics – Spain has recorded 24 femicides so far this year, according to the government – is waking up French officials and activists to what needs to be done to respond to domestic violence calls, and what France might learn from its Iberian neighbor. <In Spain, they’ve developed a complete system, from education to protection to legal punishment,> says Fatima Benomar, co-founder of French feminist group Les Effronté-es, which works to advance women’s rights. <In France, the majority of cases are thrown out. Not enough people are educated about domestic violence from early on. But at least the issue is no longer buried in the middle of the newspaper now. We’re starting to talk about it more and more.>
Different paths
Spain’s wake-up call to domestic violence came in 1997 when Ana Orantes, an Andalusian woman in her 60s, appeared on television to denounce the violence she’d endured at the hands of her husband for 40 years. Two weeks later, she was found murdered in her garden – set on fire by her husband. The case shocked the nation, and in 2004, Spain adopted a comprehensive law on intimate partner violence that implemented a range of measures involving cooperation between law enforcement, health services, and legal counsel. It also created a special court dedicated to fast-track cases of domestic violence. It has helped bring down the number of women killed annually by their partners or ex-partners from a peak of 76 in 2007 to 45 in 2020. But neighboring France has seen its own numbers stagnate over the same period – 166 women were killed by their partners in 2012 and 146 in 2019. That prompted the government to hold a national forum on domestic violence at the end of 2019, which led to a series of measures including electronic bracelets to alert women when abusers are nearby and expulsion orders to force violent partners out of the home.>>
Read more here:
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2021/0714/Gender-based-murder-stats-differ-starkly-in-France-and-Spain.-Why

The Guardian
Agence France-Presse in Madrid
24 May 2021

<<Spain PM decries domestic violence surge after five women killed in a week.

The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has denounced as <unacceptable> a surge in domestic violence in which five women were killed in the past week by their partners or ex-partners. Among the victims was a 42-year-old Barcelona woman who was stabbed to death by her husband who then killed himself, and a pregnant Moroccan woman who was killed by her partner, who called police to confess. Their deaths bring to 14 the number of women killed in Spain so far this year by their partner or former partner, and to 1,092 the total number killed since the government started keeping a tally in 2003. <It is a hard reality, an unacceptable reality,> Sanchez said, denouncing the <cruelty> of the five deaths. <Spain unfortunately suffers a misogynist scourge, which means there are men who kill women for being women. We can’t look the other way while day after day these murders happen, we must not feel oblivious to pain and fear felt by thousands of women in our country.> Campaigners attribute the increase in killings to the easing of coronavirus restrictions since the end of a state of emergency on 9 May. Women are at greater risk of physical violence from an abusive partner when they attempt to leave and this was probably happening more often now that curbs on movement have been lifted, they say.
Spanish politicians have pursued successive programmes to address domestic violence since 1997, when 60-year-old Ana Orantes was beaten, thrown over a balcony and then burned to death by her ex-husband after repeatedly complaining to authorities about his violent behaviour. Spain’s parliament in 2004 overwhelmingly approved Europe’s first law to specifically crack down on gender-based violence.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/24/spain-pm-domestic-violence-women-killed-partners-pedro-sanchez

Al Jazeera
By Lucia Benavides
5 Apr 2017

<<Murdered for being women: Spain tackles femicide rates
Women are protesting as rates of violence against them rise, forcing the government to act.

Madrid, Spain – Hours before Ana Gomez was murdered by her husband, she had been sent home by the local women’s shelter in Lugo, Galicia. She was told by workers there to ask for a divorce, but when she confronted 29-year-old Jose Manual Carballo on February 11, 2016, he refused to let her leave. He took a shotgun and killed her, later turning himself in to the authorities. Gomez’s two children from a previous relationship, a 16- and 17-year-old, were present at the time of the murder – the youngest was wounded by a bullet that went through Gomez. Today, the two brothers are under the custody of their aunt, Martina Gomez, 48. She says the system failed to protect her sister, who was 40 at the time of her death.
<Professionally trained people should know how to detect a dangerous situation,> said Martina. <They should have never let her return home that day.>

A bad year for women

This year started out with some of the worst figures of gender-related murders in Spain since 2008: as of March 2, according to official records, 16 women had been killed at the hands of partners or ex-partners. And the public outcry echoes these figures. Seven women from the Asociación Vel-la Luz, a Galicia-based organisation working with domestic violence survivors, organised a 25-day hunger strike in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol that started on February 7. For International Women’s Day on March 8, millions of women marched in cities across Spain, demanding an end to gender violence.
<The situation is getting worse,> said Gloria Vazquez, president of Vel-la Luz, who claims that one woman is murdered every three days in Spain as a result of gender violence. <There may be other countries with worse figures, but we’re tired of having to stand for ‘not as bad’. We want the best situation.> Their hard work paid off: as of early March, the Spanish central government has put into action a bipartisan sub-commission, which will bring together and hear input from politicians, activists, domestic violence survivors, judges, police officers and the community at large on how to combat gender violence. Their goal is to make the issue a government priority, revising an existing domestic violence law and discussing how to use state funds more efficiently. The government will also hold a bi-monthly panel discussion, in which Vel-la Luz will take part, examining the 25 measures that the organisation presented as part of their protest. <We were able to open up channels that weren’t there before,> said Vazquez. <We have a voice in the Senate now.>

‘Murdered for being women’

The issue of femicide in Spain – defined as the killing of a woman by a man on account of her gender – isn’t new. In 2004, the Spanish government passed a law intended to reduce domestic violence cases, establishing a network of courts specialising in the matter and funnelling funds into programmes aimed at supporting survivors. But while the law was initially regarded as exemplary, activists say it falls short. Since then, 796 women have been killed as a result of gender violence – although many claim the number is actually much higher, as the law takes into account only murders committed by partners or ex-partners. <We need legislation that really addresses femicide, that really gives it the importance it needs,> said Isabel Muntane, director of the Master’s Program on Gender and Communication at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
<Women are being murdered for being women, and it seems that society is immune to these murders. We always say that if it were football players being murdered, there would be a social revolution.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/4/5/murdered-for-being-women-spain-tackles-femicide-rates

GREECE:

The Guardian
10 Nov 2021
Rights and freedom is supported by
Humanity United
Ruth Michaelson and Maria Sidiropoulou in Athens

<<Lax punishments, police inaction and inadequate laws serve to embolden abusers, say campaigners – and stark figures bear them out
Greek minister urges victims to ‘speak up’ amid wave of domestic violence.

When a woman reported domestic violence in her building in the Athens suburb of Dafni in July, it took 25 minutes for the police to arrive. All the neighbours could hear Anisa’s husband abusing her but the police officers did not bother to get out of the patrol car. <They just rolled down their car windows and left,> Anisa’s neighbour angrily wrote on Facebook that evening. <No stress, guys. Television only cares about the bodies. So when he kills her, I’ll tell a television channel to call you.> Less than three weeks later, Anisa was dead, murdered by her husband. Neither can be named in full as the case has yet to reach trial. In a statement to police, the perpetrator described how he was overcome with jealousy after Anisa allegedly cheated on him. “I took the knife with my right hand and entered her room. She was sleeping, and I rushed to her and lay on her, stabbing her with the knife in her neck,” he said. He later retracted his claim that Anisa was asleep when he killed her. <He finally killed her. That’s all I have to say,> their neighbour wrote on Facebook after the murder. At the time, Anisa’s murder was the sixth femicide in Greece this year. Since then, at least another six women across the country have been murdered by their partners or ex-partners. Feminist groups estimate that at least one woman in Greece dies at the hands of a man each month, often their partner or ex-partner. Of the 11 victims of femicide so far this year, two had previously tried to report their attacker for domestic violence before they were murdered, but none of the men had been charged or convicted. A third woman in the coastal city of Volos was in the process of trying to obtain a restraining order when she was stabbed to death by her ex-husband. The spate of femicides throughout this year have shone a spotlight on police failings when it comes to combatting violence against women, including accusations from victims’ families that statements from officials acted as a blueprint for would-be attackers on how to kill with impunity. Lawyers and campaigners also point to clauses in the Greek penal code that they say enable a culture of impunity around violence against women. These allow reduced sentences for those accused of homicide if they were “provoked” or the crime was committed in a rage – often referred to as a <crime of passion> – or if the accused displayed good behaviour before the incident and showed guilt afterwards. They say adding femicide as a motive to the penal code would act as a vital counterweight, denying perpetrators the opportunity to present themselves in court as innocent men suddenly overcome by emotion that justified murder.
In 2020 the number of offences related to domestic violence in Greece was more than three times greater than in 2010. Ioanna Panagopoulou, a lawyer who represents the families of several victims of femicide, says: <No one in my entire career has ever taken full responsibility, confessing they planned the murder exactly as it happened. They try to make excuses and say it was a crime of passion or something else so they get a lesser sentence.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/10/a-woman-murdered-every-month-greeces-moment-of-reckoning-on-femicide

TURKEY:

Stockholm center For Freedom (SCF)
July 12, 2021

<<Mother with 13-month-old detained in Istanbul over Gülen links.

Elif Çadirci, a mathematics teacher and mother of 13-month-old Melek Gül, was detained on Friday over alleged links to the Gülen movement and sent to Tokat for interrogation, a city located some 780 kilometers from where she was detained.
According to Bold Medya, Çadirci was detained as part of an investigation launched by the Tokat Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and transferred there for further questioning.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdogan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdogan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. Erdogan intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

The detention and arrest of pregnant women and mothers with young children have dramatically increased in Turkey in the aftermath of the attempt.
According to a report released by Sezgin Tanrikulu, a human rights activist and deputy from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), there are currently 3,000 children locked up with their mothers, 800 of whom are below the age of three.
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in a statement on February 20 that a total of 622,646 people have been the subject of investigation and 301,932 have been detained, while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement since the failed coup. The minister said there are currently 25,467 people in Turkey’s prisons who were jailed on alleged links to the movement.>>
Read more here:
https://stockholmcf.org/mother-with-13-month-old-detained-in-istanbul-over-gulen-links/

Note from Gino d'Artali: I can almost hear you thinking: 'This is about politics! Surprise surprise: wherever in the world femicides takes place I daresay it are the politicians who are co-predators!!

Al Jazeera
1 July 2021
By Liz Cookman

<<Turkey women protest withdrawal from gender protection treaty. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has annulled Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention.

<<Istanbul, Turkey – Turkey officially withdrew on Thursday from the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty to prevent gender-based violence, as activists pledged to continue to fight as more women than ever before are demanding their rights are protected.
Protests took place around the country and were planned again over the weekend as an appeal against the withdrawal from opposition parties was rejected by the Council of State on Tuesday.
Demonstrators clashed with police who fired tear gas in Istanbul.
The move comes after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a midnight decree on March 20 that annulled Turkey’s ratification of the convention, legislation designed to protect women signed by 45 countries and the European Union in 2011.
Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe treaty during a summit held in Istanbul, and it is the first to pull out 10 years later.
The retreat has drawn blanket condemnation from around the world and sparked months of nationwide protests in a country where domestic violence is prevalent, with at least 300 femicides and 171 suspicious female deaths recorded last year by monitoring groups.
Despite the loss of an important battle for rights campaigners, more women than ever before are talking about the Istanbul Convention and have been motivated to take action to defend what it stands for.

We Will Stop Femicides, Turkey’s largest women’s rights group, says its support has ballooned in recent years.
The platform keeps a record of femicide rates, supplies the media with updates about ongoing court cases and offers legal support to bereaved families or women who are suffering violence.
<The Istanbul Convention withdrawal will empower the perpetrators of violence while making the victims more powerless. So we have to take on the protection work that the authorities should do,> Gulsum Kav, co-founder of the platform, told Al Jazeera.
The doctor-turned-activist was named by the BBC last year as one of the 100 most inspiring and influential women around the world.
Beginning as a handful of activists, the group was galvanised in the wake of the brutal 2009 killing of Munevver Karabulut, a high school pupil who was cut into pieces and left in a rubbish skip by her boyfriend.
<Back then, femicides were not called femicides, they were just referred to as ‘murder’,” Kav said. > The media did not present femicide as a shocking news story, but as a weekend magazine ‘real life story’<issue.>

The suspect for Karabulut’s death was the nephew of a wealthy businessman and went uncaptured until he surrendered himself 197 days later. Karabulut’s family said the Istanbul police chief at the time blamed them for her killing, saying they should not have allowed her to be out with a man at night.
The fledgeling activist group helped Karabulut’s family seek justice and after that, they dedicated themselves to raising awareness about gender-based violence and femicide.
<With modernisation and urbanisation our society is changing and women are demanding their rights more than ever before,> said Kav. <Women are changing, but men and conventional society are staying the same. Addressing this difference in mindset is core to our activism.>

Sufficient protection?
Turkey has been accused of backsliding on human rights in recent years, especially for women, minorities and the LGBTQ community.

The communications directorate claimed the Istanbul Convention pullout was due to the agreement being <hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalise homosexuality>, saying this was <incompatible with Turkey’s social and family value>.
While President Erdogan released his own action plan to combat violence on Thursday, with objectives including preventive services and access to justice, few are hopeful it will offer sufficient protection in a society increasingly focused on religiously motivated traditions.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/1/turkeys-women-to-protest-withdrawal-from-gender-protection-bill

Lifegate
10 May 2021
by Simone Sant

<<10 things you need to know about the Istanbul Convention on violence against women.

The Istanbul Convention against gender-based and domestic violence marks its tenth anniversary. We look at what it is, who its signatories are, and what the future might hold.
The Istanbul Convention, or the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, turns 10 years old on 11th May. Having originated from the Council of Europe in 2011, the Convention is the binding international treaty with the widest scope to combat this serious form of human rights violation.
Its goals are to prevent violence, protect victims, and prosecute their aggressors. Signatories are exhorted and monitored so that they adapt their legislation to include all the new criminal offences defined by the Convention, which cover psychological violence and violence due to social constructs, in addition to physical violence.
The Convention seeks to pursue the goal of zero tolerance towards gender-based violence and lays the groundwork for increasing awareness and making women’s lives safer both within and outside of Europe’s borders. Indeed, the treaty has been ratified by European Union member states but also by countries outside of the Union, since the Council of Europe counts 47 member states.
Unfortunately, however, the Convention is experiencing a rather turbulent part of its life: one country, Turkey, has been the first to withdraw from the agreement, and other members – like Poland and Hungary – have, for some time now, given signals of having doubts and cold feet.>>
Read more here:
https://www.lifegate.com/istanbul-convention-10-years
and 3 more Lifegate articles about the topic

Lifegate
4 May 2021
by Camilla Soldati

<<European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reminded us of the gravity of violence against women around the world, and of the Istanbul Convention’s utmost importance.
GENDER
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, during a plenary session of the European Parliament on 26th April, spoke about the incident that took place during her visit to Turkey alongside European Council President Charles Michel. When the two arrived at a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, von der Leyen was left without a chair. She believes this wasn’t an issue of planning or protocol, but a gender issue.
All countries should ratify the Istanbul Convention
Von der Leyen used the incident to bring light to what happens to women all over the world every day: discrimination, violence, and a lack of equal treatment. Unfortunately, however, too many episodes of violence – psychological or physical – are not reported, so nothing is done about them. For this reason, von der Leyen highlighted the importance of the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe treaty to combat and prevent violence against women and domestic violence, which was opened for signature ten years ago, on 11th May 2011.

Given the critical women’s rights situation in certain countries, some of which (like Turkey) have even withdrawn from the Convention, or are thinking of doing so (like Poland). Von der Leyen stated that all European countries’ adhesion to this binding international treaty remains a priority for the Union and that laws will be put forth to expand the list of crimes – like hate crimes – so that any form of violence is prevented, condemned, and prosecuted.>>
Read more here:
https://www.lifegate.com/ursula-von-der-leyen-women-istanbul-convention

SCF Stockholm Center for Freedom
April 12 2021

<<Turkish Interior minister claims number of femicides declined in first quarter of 2021.

As Turkey receives growing criticism for withdrawing from an international treaty to combat domestic violence, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has claimed the number of femicides in Turkey decreased by 21 percent in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the same period last year.
Speaking at a meeting on combating violence against women, Soylu said 55,231 women have faced violence during the same time period, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
According to women activists the government doesn’t not provide the real number of women killed and the official figures are not correct. They previously called on authorities to be transparent about femicide numbers if they are to effectively combat it.
A report released by the Stop the Murder of Women Platform showed that 28 women in Turkey were victims of fatal domestic violence and 19 others were found dead under suspicious circumstances in March alone.

Activists started a new campaign in January against femicide in Turkey, calling on authorities to be more effective in preventing femicide and protecting women. As a first step, the activists demanded that the government monitor exactly how many women are murdered annually.
According to a report previously published by Sezgin Tanrikulu, a human rights defender and deputy from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), nearly 7,000 women have been victims of femicide during the 18 years that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been in power.
The report said one of the main reasons for the increase in deaths was because women were not taken seriously by law enforcement when they complained about violence. “Women go to the police and file a complaint against their partners after a violent incident,” said the report. “However, instead of taking the necessary legal steps against the perpetrators, the authorities act as conciliators and try to reconcile the partners.”
Hülya Atçi Nergis, a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), recently said in a controversial remark that women also bear some guilt for male violence.>>
Read more here:
https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-interior-minister-claims-number-of-femicides-declined-in-first-quarter-of-2021/

DW made for minds
3 March 2021
Burcu Karakas

<<How many femicides in Turkey are covered up as suicides?
Last year, 300 women were murdered in Turkey, according to a women's rights organization. The number of unrecorded cases could be far higher as femicides are often filed as suicides.
The gruesome murder of women is all too common in Turkey and news of such crimes repeatedly shocks large parts of the country. The May 2018 murder of 23-year-old Ankara resident Sule Cet is one that has lodged itself particularly deep in Turkey's collective memory: The young woman was raped in the office by two drunken men, one of them her boss. Afterward, she was tossed out of the window of the high-rise block. The men told police that Cet had taken her own life — even though the coroner had detected a broken neck, tears in the victim's anal region and sedatives in her blood — evidence hardly consistent with suicide.
The trial lasted six months and was accompanied by demonstrations and expressions of solidarity from women. The case was also followed with great compassion on social media. The public pressure brought results, with the court in Ankara sentencing the perpetrator to life in prison and his accomplice to almost 19 years in jail.
Back then, women's rights groups hoped the attention the case attracted would prompt a change in society — not just one supported by civil society but by the Turkish judicial system as well.
Was Sule Cet's case an exception?
Unfortunately, not much seems to have changed since then, with several new cases in which claims of suicide were used in an attempt to cover up femicides. Most recently, the tragic death of 35-year-old Ayten Kaya from the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir has made headlines. Kaya was found strung up in her own home. Investigators concluded that she had committed suicide. The state prosecutor's office closed the case.
But the woman's relatives do not accept that version of events. They believe she was murdered and say the case file was full of holes and contradictions.

The autopsy failed to record a time of death, for example. And her entire body was covered with bruises — hardly consistent with death by hanging. The autopsy also showed that the woman had three-day-old hematomata on her body. Her husband, a seasonal farmworker, had been at home exactly three days before. Yet, despite numerous objections, state prosecutors decided against reopening the case.

Women's rights activists blame judiciary.

Lawyer Gurbet Gozde Engin is a member of the Diyarbakir branch of Rosa, an association for women. She reports that four more women died under similar circumstances during the weeks following Ayten Kaya's death and says prosecutors refused to investigate them. "In cases where women have died under circumstances in which suicide seems very doubtful, then it must be possible to steer investigations in a different direction. It is not just a crime to kill, it is also a crime to declare femicides to be suicides."
Hatice Coruk from the Kadin Kultur Evi Dernegi women's association places blame on the entire justice system: "We have to be more mistrustful whenever a femicide is classed as a suicide. It is increasingly a cover for femicide." Leyla Soydinc from Mor Cati Kadin Siginagi Vakfi, an Istanbul-based women's association, also sees a structural problem. "In a justice system dominated by men, many of the crimes committed [against women] go unpunished."
She says that men can feel certain they will be deemed innocent by the justice system as soon as they frame femicide as a suicide. "To make an ostensible suicide seem more plausible, the case file then says things like 'wasn't in a good mood, had psychological problems.'"
300 femicides, 171 suspicious deaths
Social media campaigns on the subject and the determined action of women's rights groups are putting the government and the judiciary under more and more pressure. But both have hushed up this problem for a very long time and until now it has been impossible to discern any real political will to fight violence against women. That, despite the fact that 300 femicides were recorded in 2020, according to figures published by the organization called We Will Stop Femicides. The organization says another 171 women were found dead under suspicious circumstances in Turkey during that same time, some of those cases also included alleged suicides.>>
Read more here:
https://www.dw.com/en/how-many-femicides-in-turkey-are-covered-up-as-suicides/a-56752194