Turkey should respect the convention named after Istanbul

The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence is called the Istanbul Convention. It was signed in Istanbul in 2011. Turkey worked tremendously hard to reach an agreement with member-states and it became the first country to sign it. This was highly significant and symbolic since a majority Muslim country had taken leadership on an issue about women. 

These were the good days. Turkey cared about its image. Actually, it was the last days of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments pretending to be working for a democratic country with the rule of law and respect to fundamental freedoms. By then, the AKP's ruling elites concluded that they no longer needed the support of Europe and the West in general to legitimize and consolidate their power. So, they stopped posing as if they endorsed and internalized universal values.

July 31 will mark the third year of the Istanbul Convention being put into force in Turkey. If the convention did not carry the name of a Turkish city, the government would probably by now have withdrawn its signature from it, or suspended it, if there was such a clause. Avoiding such a scandalous step, it tries to erode the convention's requirements.
 
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