democratization

The book of Femicide Is Preventable Campaing which is composed of Femicide Action Research, Conference on Urgent Action to Stop Femicide, Guide to Reporting on Femicide and Femcide Urgent Action Plan has been published.

The base and backbone of this movement is its political wing. Its newest offspring is the Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP – Halkların Demokratik Partisi) that received more than six million (13.12%) votes (80 seats) in the last election. With new elections looming in November and new clashes flaring up between the Turkish government and the PKK, the HDP’s future hangs in the balance as well.

Bakur, a feature-length documentary produced in 2015, was to be screened as part of the non-competing category in the Istanbul Film Festival organized annually by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV). However, neither this documentary nor many of the films and documentaries which were to participate in the film festival were able to be screened. The apparent reason was that Bakur: A Guerilla Documentary did not have the registration document required by the Ministry of Culture.1 The fact that the registration document was not demanded until the date of the documentary’s screening caused public indignation and 21 filmmakers whose films were to be screened in the festival withdrew their films from the festival to support the producer and directors of Bakur.2

Political parties have run their course as well; their representative function works in a roundabout way, with various mediators and subcontractors. People’s demands and representation are not able to be dealt with directly. People and NGOs went out on the street and cried out their demands but it stopped there. Ministries constitute the heart of the state; the bureaucracy has become so bloated that it is about to burst. The cumbersome state is collapsing. There is discontent and violence.

The provision which allows the police to conduct strip searches and wiretapping without a judge’s permission is an instrument which will bolster plans to intern public “enemies” on a large scale. The legal system gives place to detention camps, and citizens turn into “enemies”.

There are no female MPs in 43 out of 81 provinces. This democratic deficit can only be changed through a very radical change in the process of nomination. In this regard, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), whose charter guarantees “at least equal representation for women in all decision- making mechanisms” can be taken as a good practice. The presence of co-chairs in party organs and local government is another exemplary practice for the equal representation of genders. This model or similar models could be adopted by other political parties.

“This very much resembles a penalty kick. If I were an Armenian, I would simply go on saying the same thing. That is because the centenary is a penalty kick of sorts. We are objecting to the referee’s decision. But the penalty will be taken. The Armenian views the centenary as a penalty kick in his favor, and will try to make the best of it. In the face of accusations that undermine its very identity, Turkey will do its utmost to explain its own version of events."

We started the year 2015 with the civil society’s struggle for democracy and rights on the one hand, and tensions created by an increasingly authoritarian government and regional upheaval and conflict on the other. A hundred years have passed since 1915.     

The so-called “settlement process” which began with PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan’s letter dated Mart 21, 2013 triggered debates in Kurdish organizations other than PKK. Kurdish movements small or big, which are a distant to PKK, initially approached Öcalan’s letter “with a prudent optimism”.