Turkey's child murders revive death penalty debate
“I can find no words to say after seeing my baby yesterday in that condition. I am calling on the state to hang him as an example to all. They should not give him a glass of water but hang him in order to douse the fire in my heart.”
This desperate intonation came from the mother of 6-year-old Gizem Akdeniz, whose fate scorched the conscience of the nation after her brutally disfigured body was found. Press reports said she was murdered by a male relative who reportedly wanted revenge on Gizem’s family for refusing to let him marry her older sister.
Following a massive manhunt and his arrest, the suspected young killer, only named as S.A., was said to have confessed to this crime committed in Adana. In his confession to police, made available to the press, he reportedly said he had tricked little Gizem by telling her they were going on a picnic. Instead, he took her to a secluded place, bound her hands and legs with tape, stabbed her repeatedly with his knife, poured petrol on her and set her alight while she was still alive. He then waited 25 minutes for her cries to die out before leaving the scene of the crime.
News of Gizem’s brutal murder came only days after a similar incident, this time in the city of Kars. Nine-year-old Mert Aydin was murdered by A.B., a 23-year-old with a police record who was also arrested following a massive manhunt. According to the autopsy, the unfortunate boy died after having been hit on the head with a stone, strangled and then raped.
These are just the latest and most gruesome of incidents involving the death of young children, so it is no surprise that the public is clamoring for the death penalty, which Turkey abolished over a decade ago in compliance with EU criteria after Ankara’s candidacy for membership was accepted.
Turkey became the first predominantly Islamic country to abolish the death penalty — a fact that was taken as a turning point with regard to its European orientation. This did not mean, however, that executions were carried out easily in Turkey prior to the abolishment of the death penalty.
The last execution took place in 1984, even though the death penalty was not abolished until 2002 — except for treason during times of war or a threat to national security —and then in 2004 for all crimes, including treason.
Executions under democratically elected governments could only be carried out in Turkey with parliamentary permission, which was not easy to obtain given the controversial history of political executions in the country, including that of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who was ousted by a military coup and sentenced by a military court to death by hanging in 1961 for treason.
In 1984, a young left-wing activist, Hidir Aslan, was the last person to be executed after he was accused of killing three police officers during a bank robbery. There is still controversy surrounding his case.
The recent cases of brutality against children have forced even Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and members of his government to pay lip service to the notion of capital punishment in an effort to appease public anger.
When asked by reporters on May 2, after the body of Gizem Akdeniz was discovered and her alleged murderer arrested, if the government was considering reviving the death penalty, Erdogan conceded that the punishment for such crimes should be death.
“Such crimes merit the death penalty. Even if we do not reinstate the death penalty, I have instructed our friends to work on much tougher punishments. We have a problem in our country concerning the abolishment of the death penalty in relation to our EU membership process,” he said. “But there are other options that can be considered in view of this problem, including life without parole, because it is not possible to remain insensitive in the face of such crimes.”
Minister of Energy Taner Yildiz, who is known to frequently comment on topics outside his area of focus, was more direct, saying that child killers should “definitely be executed.”
“What I say may not comply with the system, but I am expressing my belief. The rights of that child of ours rest on her mother and father, and their decision should be the valid one. If it is execution, then the answer to this is execution,” he said, bringing an Islamic interpretation to the topic.
The reaction among the parliamentary opposition to reinstating the death penalty was mixed. The Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which is vehemently opposed to the government’s “Kurdish opening,” saw a political opportunity to strike at Erdogan.
“Where was your conscience when the monster of Imrali was killing 40,000 people, when he was killing children? Where was your conscience when the death penalty was abolished?” MHP deputy and party spokesman Oktay Vural said during a May 2 press conference. Vural held up photos of children killed in raids by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish separatist group that has been waging a campaign of terrorism in Turkey since the mid-1990s.
Vural’s “monster of Imrali” reference was directed at PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan — the Erdogan government’s key interlocutor in its “Kurdish opening” — who received a death sentence in 1999 after being nabbed by Turkish special forces in Kenya.
Ocalan’s sentence was never carried out and subsequently commuted after the death penalty was abolished. The MHP frequently uses this against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The irony is that Ocalan received his death sentence while the MHP was part of the coalition government of the day, which also abolished the death sentence for crimes other than treason.
Erdogan has used this in the past to hit back at the MHP. Yet, according to the MHP, the AKP government should have executed Ocalan before abolishing the death penalty for all crimes, including treason, in 2004. The sparring has continued between the two parties ever since.
The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which brands itself as a center-of-left party, responded predictably to the current debate, stating it is categorically opposed to the death penalty under any condition. Aylin Nazliaka, a CHP deputy and spokeswoman, told attendees of a May 2 press conference in Ankara that they opposed the death sentence because of the basic right to life.
“We are against anything that prevents the exercise of this basic right. We are against the death penalty under any condition. If there are so many child murders and murders of women, there is the need to take legal steps against this. Current laws and the way the state monitors these events are insufficient,” said Nazliaka.
While not taking an active part in the current debate, the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) predictably stated it was against the death penalty, even though this has more to do with Ocalan and the party's links through family ties to PKK militants.
Regardless of the debate following the horrible murder of innocent children, which also covers the equally horrible crimes committed against women, few expect a reinstatement of the death penalty in Turkey anytime soon.
Already under the critical eye of the West, which sees Turkey turning increasingly away from European standards of democracy and law, it is unlikely that the Erdogan government will risk further censure by going down that path — whatever its beliefs on the matter. But it is not only reactions from the West that the government has to consider.
Despite the public outcry and calls for the death penalty that follow dreadful crimes — a phenomenon that is also not alien to the West — the Turkish public has rarely been at ease with this penalty, which in the past never stopped terrible crimes from being committed anyway.
The need for “closure” — as it is politely put in the United States, where the death penalty exists in many states — for affected families is very real and cannot be denied. Whether there can ever be closure for people who lose loved ones in such brutal ways is also questionable.
This has little to do with how advanced and educated a society is. There is, after all, the recent example from Iran of the mother who found peace after forgiving her son's killer just before he was to be hanged.
Life provides few answers for such terrible dilemmas.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...#ixzz30gzlBCmg
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