On the 17th of February 2014, the Guardian Newspaper commented on the brutal murder of twenty-year-old Turkish student Ozgecan Aslan whilst she was traveling home on a bus. “Reports said Aslan pepper-sprayed the man before he stabbed her and beat her to death with an iron bar. He then enlisted the help of his father and a friend to dispose of her body in a river in Tarsus, where it was found on Friday showing evidence of burns as well as the fatal injuries.” The murder has initiated one of the largest twitter campaigns to date. As of Monday, more than 440,000 tweets had been shared under the hashtag #sendeanlat (tell your story). Women have told of their experiences of violence, intimidation and harassment, and it was the third highest trending topic worldwide on Sunday 15th of February 2014. Another hashtag, #ozceganaslan, was even more popular, trending with more than 2.5m tweets.

Comment:

Even with the so called Islamic political angles used by the governing AKP it is clear that there is growing concern and anger amongst thousands of Turkish women regarding their ability to live in Turkey without fear of violence or abuse. The question that comes to mind is that with all of the Turkish government’s rhetoric on the protection of Islamic values such as Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reversal of the ban on female civil servants wearing the Hijab in 2013, why is there such little progress in the safety of women? What can be done to make real permanent changes in society to give Muslim women and girls their full rights? The current adoption of the ruling party to be identified as a “conservative democracy”, this gives us a clearer indication of why women are increasingly suffering under the political policies of the Turkey. The fact is that you cannot make a ‘coalition’ of Islamic and non-Islamic principles. The system of Islam was revealed in a manner that must be implemented in its entirety for it to serve the purpose of solving the problems of humanity correctly. For example it is nonsensical to place a permit on women wearing Hijab publically whilst allowing the influence of liberal secular values in the advertising and entertainment mediums that exist in the country. Turkey is fast becoming an international center for the development of soap operas and drama based formats that promote the breakdown of family values, the objectification of women and the undermining of her honorable positon as a wife and mother. The economic system of Islam allows women to work, but also demands that she be maintained financially by her male relatives or the state itself, in this manner she should not be forced to undertake demeaning or slave like work practices to support herself or her children. The penal code of the Khilafah would uphold the severest of punishments for domestic violence or any kind of abuse of females. The education system would teach boys that they are the guardians of women and that their role is an Islamic obligation that, if not practiced properly, would earn them the punishment of the Islamic State as well as accounting on the Day of Judgment, thus Taqwah and god-fearing motives are crucial in the social order of Islam. In the absence of a comprehensive system working in unison with all other systems all that is practiced in all of the current so called Islamic countries, is a misguided mess of policies that contradict each other and create more social ills than they solve. Allah (swt) forbids this in Surah al-Ma’idah 5:44.

وَمَن لَّمْ يَحْكُم بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللّهُ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْكَافِرُونَ

“And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, such are the kaafiroon”

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Imrana Mohammad

Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir