Holistic approach

Memi lived in Kahta, Adıyaman, with her family, including eight brothers and sisters. One night her father and grandfather sent the whole family away except Medine. They said that Medine should stay at home to take care of the male relatives. When the family returned one day later, they were told that she had run away from home, but no one went to the police station to notify them about her.

But later an informant tipped off the police that she’d gone missing, and her body was found in a cement-filled hole in a small poultry coop in the garden of the house. When her body was found, it was December. I would like to underline, it was December.

At that time some reports suggested that she went to the police station at least once before she was killed to complain about domestic violence towards her and her mother by her father and grandfather, but apparently the police took no action.

But her story and the fatal mistake of the police was not on the agenda, so she was just the subject of some short articles. Her fate did not draw as much attention as Cem Garipoğlu, who beheaded his girlfriend. There was no fan club for her, the so-called experts did not discuss the issue on TV for hours and hours, the ministers and prime minister did not comment on Memi as they did on the Garipoğlu case.

However the expected behavior is supposed to different. The Interior Ministry, for example, is supposed to act rapidly, should explain to the public whether Memi’s police complaint was really not taken seriously. The experts are supposed to discuss how to prevent further killings, but none of that happened.

Actually, if the autopsy report had not indicated that she was buried alive and while conscious, she would already be forgotten. Only after the publication of the autopsy did the media pay attention to her case, and even only after that did some deputies take action. Gaye Erbatur, from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and Fatma Kurtalan, from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), asked the Interior Ministry whether there was any investigation into the apparent negligence of the police.

What is really worrying to me, increasing my feeling of suffocation, is the thought that maybe some killings are considered “normal,” or worse yet, routine.

Everybody was so quick to label it an honor killing because allegedly Memi’s male relatives claimed that she had been talking with boys. Do we really know that? Why did it never cross our minds to question it? Maybe there was another motive behind the murder, and the honor excuse is just that: The male relative killers trying to find an excuse. Imagine, we are talking about a 16-year-old girl who is brave and knowledgeable enough to complain about her violent male relatives to the police, a real challenge to the male authority. While even many women and children in big cities hesitate to go the police when they are victims of domestic violence, she was brave enough to seek help, something just increasing my suffocation when I think that she was turned away.

By the way, to term those kinds of killings “honor killings” is something not acceptable; why are those kinds of killings called killings of passion or insanity when they occur in the West, but “honor killings” when they take place in the East?

This approach is valid not only within Turkey but for Western countries, too. When I read comments on the Internet written by Westerners, either they have this attitude of “Eastern people do that” or they link the murder of Medine with Islam. In Turkey this discourse turns into “Kurds do that.” Some are linking it with Islam, too; even worse, I read some comments which suggested that such crimes are committed due to the Islamist ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

Well the government has to be blamed, of course, for not asserting the political will to fight domestic violence, but to try to gain political benefit from such a case is just killing more.