Turkey leaves the Istanbul Convention, thousands protest in the streets

by time news

Time.news – Thousands of people have demonstrated in Istanbul to ask the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to review his decision of abandon the 2011 Istanbul Convention, the first binding treaty to prevent e combat violence against women.

“Mark back, apply the treaty,” screamed the women in the Kadikoy neighborhood on the Asian side of Istanbul. Many protesters carried portraits of women victims of femicides in Turkey and on one was written: “Women will win this battle.” Other smaller demonstrations were held in the capital Ankara and in the city of Smyrna.

Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention was branded as “devastating” by the Council of Europe, according to which the decision “undermines the protection of women”.

It’s a bad signal to Europe, but especially to Turkish women “, the German Foreign Ministry observed,” a worrying decline in rights “, echoed the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clement Beaune.

Erdogan had first talked about leaving the Istanbul Convention last year, in an effort to mobilize its conservative electorate in the face of growing economic difficulties. He was pushed to take the step by conservative and Islamist groups, according to whom the treaty, because it defends gender equality, damages “traditional” family values ​​and, since it prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, “favors” the LGBT community.

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