On 21st of July, the 27-year-old student Pinar Gültekin was murdered in Muğla in southwest Turkey by her ex-boyfriend through strangulation and the body was then poured over with concrete in a dustbin after combustion attempts. The number of murders of women in Turkey continues to rise and this year, according to the women's association Kamer, is already as high as 260 – the number of cases of domestic violence in Istanbul alone has risen by 40 percent this year, increased by the curfew.
The day after this cruel murder, there were nationwide combative rallies and demonstrations against patriarchal violence and the murders of the recent months with hundreds of participants in, among others, Muğla, Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Hatay, Mersin, Antalya and Meletî (Malatya). In Izmir, the cops attacked a demonstration without any specific reason and arrested twelve female demonstrators. One participant reported: "We only gathered in front of the cultural centre in the Alsancak district to make a press statement. When we started the protest march, the police suddenly stopped us with barricades. Afterwards we were unlawfully detained, beaten and abused."
In large parts, the protests also called for compliance with the Istanbul Convention ("Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence", 2011). Turkey was the first country to sign the convention and introduce it nationally as a "law to prevent violence against women and protect the family". In the recent past, the Turkish government took position against the convention and held out the prospect of dropping out of the agreement. Of course, whether Turkey officially implements this empty treaty or rejects it is of no matter; the aim is to strengthen the trust of the masses in bourgeois democracy and in the alleged importance of this convention. Patriarchy, however, can only be abolished by the complete destruction of imperialism, which for Turkey means, as a first step, the victory of the new democratic revolution.