Turkey's President Erdoğan claims to 'have never interfered with anyone's lifestyles'
Appearing on TV for the first time after the deadly armed attack of ISIL at Reina night club in Ortaköy, İstanbul, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reacted against views that saw the latest attack as different than the previous ones and as ‘targetting people’s lifestyles.’
Giving statements at the Meeting of the Village Headmen at Presidential Palace in Ankara yesterday (January 4), Erdoğan also took on the defensive in the face of assertions that ‘people’s lives have been restricted in Turkey’ and said: “Is there anybody who has been pressured because of their lifestyles throughout this long time where everything I do and everything I say has been disclosed in the front of public? While this is the case, you see that some use the social media… and, make such assertions without a shame. Like everyone else, I had also criticized views that I do not agree with but I have never resorted to an act that could be considered as intervening with people’s lifestyles.”
Although Erdoğan has claimed that ‘nobody’s lifestyle has been targeted or interfered with’ throughout the years of his rule, there are several cases and instances exemplifying the case as otherwise. Either directly or indirectly, people have been subjected because of their lifestyles both by Erdoğan himself and as a result of the general atmosphere created in the country under AKP rule.
Some of such examples are:
- Not long ago, a young nurse from İstanbul, Ayşegül Terzi, had been attacked by a man for having worn shorts in public. Her attacker has eventually been released although he had got arrested several times in the face of reactions.
- A pregnant woman in Manisa got attacked by a man while jogging at the park near her house. The attacker openly told her ‘not to jog there ever again’.
- Speaking at a meeting organized by KADEM (Women and Democracy Association) on 5 June 2016, President Erdoğan said: “A woman who refuses motherhood and abstains from managing her house is half of a woman regardless of her success at work place.”
- In a speech given on 24 November 2014, President Erdoğan said: “You cannot see women and men as equal; that’s against the nature (of things).”
- In his speech from 26 April 2013, Erdoğan said: “There is nothing to defend about alcohol consumption as a way of life. Our national drink is ayran (yoghurt drink)". Erdoğan repeated this assertion again very recently.
- On 4 November 2013, Erdoğan said: “Young female and male students stay in the same house. This is against our conservative values. We’ve given the order; the issue will be monitored.” Following this statement, students' houses at different places had been raided by police.
- In his speech on 25 May 2012, President Erdoğan said: “I am against C-section birth. And, I see abortion as murder! Nobody should have the right to allow this to be done!” Following this statement of Erdoğan, Ankara Mayor Gökçek said: “If the mother is raped, why would the child die (through abortion); the mother should die!”
- Prior to 2011 elections, during the protests against killing of Metin Lokumcu – who was killed as a result of excessive teargas used by police in a demonstration -, a woman had climbed over a panzer. Reacting to the act of the woman with an implied message of discrimination, Erdoğan said: “I do not know if it was a girl (a virgin) or a woman (not a virgin) but she had climbed over a panzer.”
- Speaking at a public meeting in Muş province on 30 April 2011, President Erdoğan said: “We know that Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu (chair of CHP) is person who has been brought up in Alevi culture; he is an Alevi.” In response to this, his supporters booed Kılıçdaroğlu.
- Sales of alcoholic beverages at convenient stores between the hours of 22:00 and 6:00 have been banned since 24 May 2013.
- In April of 2013, Turkish Airlines banned female flight attendants from wearing red lipstick claiming it was a decision taken as a response to complaints received from passengers.
- Former deputy PM Bülent Arınç said on 28 July 2014, during a ceremony in Bursa: “And, a woman should be chaste. She should know her manners. She should not laugh out loudly in front of everyone. She should not be attractive with her reactions and should protect her chastness.”
- AKP’s Diyarbakır MP Cuma İçten tweeted a message saying, “What CHP’s youth sees as freedom is dressing up in an extremely revealing way; drinking; and, getting entertained until the morning.”
- Having appeared on a TV show on 6 October 2013, then Deputy PM Hüseyin Çelik had made a comment about the decolette of a TV hose, Gözde Kansu, by saying: “She was dressed in such an unacceptable way. We do not interfere with anybody but that is just too much. It cannot be acceptable!” Following criticism of Çelik, TV host Gözde Kansu was fired.
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The cartoon below is from Turkey's satirist magazine Penguen. Erdoğan says, in the cartoon, 'We do not interfere with anyone's lifestyle'.
