In an unfortunate development of events the police in Turkey shot a young woman critically in the process of rescuing her from her abusive “husband.” The Islamic tradition of “marrying” underage girls to older men continues in Turkey with the blessing of Erdoğan’s AKP government. While the government keeps losing votes, it is more tolerant […]
In an unfortunate development of events the police in Turkey shot a young woman critically in the process of rescuing her from her abusive “husband.”
The Islamic tradition of “marrying” underage girls to older men continues in Turkey with the blessing of Erdoğan’s AKP government. While the government keeps losing votes, it is more tolerant to allow such atrocities to please its male, Muslim, voter base.
A young girl in Bitlis, Turkey, was forcefully married to an abusive man who was also her relative. According to her family’s attorney, the “husband”, Ferit Kanlı, beat her regularly. To escape this abuse, the child ran and hid at her grandfather’s house.
The abusive husband Ferit Kanlı, upon learning her whereabouts, staged an armed attack to the girl’s grandfather’s home. During the commotion, the girl escaped and took refuge in another house nearby and told the police her location. When the husband Kanlı refused to surrender, and took shelter in the grandfather’s house, Turkish police sent the young child back to negotiate with him to come out. However, Kanlı took the young girl, his “wife”, hostage, brandished his weapon, and forced her to take cover in the henhouse in the yard. When negotiations to come out broke down, the police were given the permission to shoot on sight. The police, approaching the coop where the couple was taking cover, they started beating at the walls and the door with their shields. The husband came out first and was attacked by the police with their batons. But in the fire opened by the cops, the girl was shot, as well as her husband, when she came out.
Many high-level police officers and local political leaders were at the scene, observing, during the operation. However, when the video of the rescue operation was requested as evidence, the police commissioner said there was none because the battery had run out.
The girl was taken to the hospital with three police bullet wounds where she is reportedly recovering in the children’s section. She has undergone 5 surgeries. The nurse reported that when she woke up from the operations the girl was crying and saying she was scared that the police would come to find her and kill her in the hospital bed.
The husband Kanlı, on the other hand, has been released after an initial questioning.
The police officers in the shooting were not questioned immediately and were given time to get together, prepare, and get their stories straight after the shootout. All police officers involved gave the same deposition and claimed they shot in the air and did not know how the girl was shot or by whom.
While the police claim they only shot into the air, the victims’ wounds show this was not the case. The girl was shot in her stomach, abdomen and just below the heart. The husband was shot in his feet.
Sendika.org News (MB)