PEN Norway’s hearing report in the case of “We Will Stop Femicide” Platform

Today PEN Norway’s Turkey Adviser, Caroline Stockford, was in Istanbul to monitor the third hearing in the case aimed at bringing down the platform that secure pro-bono women lawyers and support the families of murdered women. Present in the courtroom were diplomatic representatives from the Consulates of Finland, Ireland,
Holland and France.

According to the “We Will Stop femicide” Platform’s January 2023 report, 31 women were killed by their husbands or ex-partners in January alone and 25 died in  suspicious circumstances. A group known as ‘Victims of Alimony’ opened a case against the platform in 2016 stating that they were ‘immoral’ and ‘denigrate the fabric of the family in Turkey’ and that the platform had not acted strictly in accordance with laws governing associations in Turkey.

At today’s hearing, which began one hour late at 12.02, the judge heard petitions from NGOs, women’s organisations, Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation, the Union of İstanbul Woman Organisations and Bar Associations from all over Turkey to join the case. The Ankara Bar stated, “We work for women and for all LBTQI rights and support cases on this basis. Ahmet Yıldız and Hande Kader were activists for these rights and were killed in our country. Women are not protected sufficiently by the government and this struggle of the ‘anti-femicide platform’ goes on because women keep on getting killed.”

The hearing lasted for two hours and saw testimony from seven witnesses, who were family members of murdered women. These included Mustafa Damar, father of law student Ceren Damar who was killed by a male student in the law faculty of her university. He, like all other witnesses testified to the solidarity and support offered by the ‘We Will Stop Femicide’ Platform, who had secured pro bono lawyers for all the families present and had supported them psychologically throughout every hearing, in legal cases that lasted for up to five years or more.

Read the full report here in English and Turkish: