Turkey’s top administrative court has rejected all appeals against the country’s withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty for combating violence against women. Women and women’s organizations say they will not recognize the decision and not give up on the Convention until it is fully implemented.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 20 issued a decree pulling Turkey out of the İstanbul Convention. Turkey notified the Council of Europe of its decision on March 23.
As a reason for Turkey’s withdrawal, the Presidency Communications Directorate said the convention “legitimizes homosexuality.”
Since then, women have been protesting against the government’s decision and demanding the country’s return to the convention.
Turkey’s top administrative court has rejected all appeals against the country’s withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty for combating violence against women.
Since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decree pulling Turkey out of the convention, more than 220 appeals have been filed with the Council of State. Opposition parties, women’s rights groups and citizens were among those who objected to the president’s decision.
After the 10th Chamber of the Council of State rejected the requests for the stay of execution of the presidential decision, appeals were filed with the Board of the Chambers of Administrative Cases, the highest body of the Council of State.
Handing down its verdict today (November 18), the board rejected all appeals and the presidential decision about the convention became final. In its verdict, the Council of State pointed out article 80 of the convention, which allows countries’ executive organs, which is the presidency in Turkey’s case, to annul the convention for their countries.
“The Convention is unnecessary”
In a joint press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez on November 17th, reporters asked the Turkish leader if Sanchez had asked whether Turkey would return to the Istanbul Convention on the prevention of – and fight against – machismo violence, a central question for the Spanish government.
Erdogan answered that Turkey’s rejoining the pact was not discussed because he believes that the international agreement is “unnecessary.”
“We’ve completely removed the Istanbul Convention from our agenda … Our government is very, very responsive with regard to violence against women. We’ve taken measures with our security forces, with the Justice Ministry, and we will take more measures,” the Turkish leader said.
He went on to insist that “We have eliminated the Istanbul Convention because the measures that would have been taken with it we’ve already incorporated into our regular laws; the measures against violence are certainly on our agenda,” adding that “Women are most sacred for us within the concept of the family and we will not permit this to sullied.”