The attack on a woman for wearing shorts

During the relatively calm days of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), an unpleasant incident made Turkey's breaking news. A young woman, working as a nurse in an Istanbul hospital, was physically attacked in a public bus merely because she was wearing shorts. The attacker, who denounced her supposedly immodest dress, yelled at her, called her a "devil," and then kicked her in the face. The woman luckily survived with nothing more than a bruise on the chin but she was understandably traumatized.

Also understandably, this ugly attack rallied many Turks, especially women, about the threat they feel toward their lifestyle. Social media mobilized against the attacker and for his victim, while demonstrations were held in a few major cities. The common feeling was that this was not an isolated incident, but one of the many alarm signals about an increasingly "Islamized" Turkey, where women would be forced to dress "modestly," as defined by intrusive men who have no modesty about their own desire to reshape society.

Things got worse when the attacker got caught — only to be released. The man proudly said, "Her dress was against Islam. I beat people who walk around like that." It turned out that the man was "bipolar," in other words had some mental issues. But when the prosecutor who questioned him opened an investigation into him only based on "simple injury" before letting him go, many thought there were "issues" with the state as well. In a country where more than 100 journalists are kept in jail for months merely over what they have written, it really looked maddening that a man who kicked a woman in the face in public can just walk out freely. 

So the public uproar only increased - and rightly. Fortunately, it did have an impact on the state...