A string of cases in which missing children were found dead has reignited calls to reinstate the death penalty in Turkey, but some see political motives behind the outcry.
The Turkish media in recent weeks has been awash with stories of missing children, some of whom have met a tragic end. On July 2, the body of a 4-year-old girl was found outside a village in the eastern province of Agri, where she had gone missing 18 days before while the family was visiting relatives. On June 30, the security forces dug up the body of an 8-year-old girl in Polatli near Ankara. The girl, who had been missing for a week, was reportedly tortured, sexually abused and strangled to death. On July 8, a 2-year-old boy was found dead outside his village in the southeastern province of Bitlis a day after he went missing. Also on July 8, the security forces recovered the body of a speech-handicapped 6-year-old boy in a mountainous area in the southern province of Hatay, about a week after he vanished while in the company of a mentally challenged relative.
The problem of missing kids is not new for Turkey. Gamze Akkus Ilgezdi, a lawmaker for the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), last week submitted a proposal for a parliamentary inquiry on the issue. According to Ilgezdi, an average of 32 children go missing every day in the country.
Why, then, is a long-overlooked problem now becoming a top item in the news? To put it briefly, media organizations in Turkey have begun to change their editorial policies. News about social problems are bound to gain weight in the coming period because they carry little political risk.
Yet the increasing focus on neglected or abused children is positive, regardless of the reason. Persistent media coverage of cases of missing children could raise sensitivity on the issue, not only among the public but also among politicians. 2 years ago, a proposal for a parliamentary inquiry into the problem, submitted by a deputy from the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), failed to materialize, as members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) voted against the move.
Will Ilgezdi's proposal stand a better chance of acceptance in the new parliament now? In remarks to Al-Monitor, the CHP lawmaker said, "If conscience takes the lead, the proposal will be accepted and a comprehensive inquiry will follow into the cases of missing children. According to my research, children are being used in terrorist activities and for organ trafficking, besides sexual abuse."
Whether parliament will set up an inquiry commission remains to be seen, but the simmering public anger over child abuse has rekindled calls to reinstate the death penalty.
MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, who ahead of the June 24 polls called for an amnesty for a wide range of convicts, has now brought up the death penalty. The MHP continues to be a critical partner for the ruling party after the AKP lost its parliamentary majority. In a Twitter post June 30, Bahceli said, "Whether execution or the toughest of sentences and isolation, vile barbarians deserve it. ... They cannot escape it. They will face up to all consequences of their cowardice and treachery."
In a 2nd tweet July 2, Bahceli openly referred to child abuse. "Punishing child murderers in the toughest and most severe way is an inevitable requirement of justice and a duty of humanity and honor," he said. "Everyone should know that we will follow this up to the end."
Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004 as part of its effort to align with EU norms. Even before that, no one had been executed in the country since 1984 under a de facto moratorium on the execution of death sentences.
Social media is abuzz with calls to bring back the death penalty, and a number of petition campaigns are underway on change.org.
Yet opposition to the death penalty is equally vocal. Zafer Ozbilici, the head of the Association of Families with Missing Relatives, believes the struggle against child abuse should be waged through other means.
"Even the Code of Hammurabi [Babylonian code of law] before Christ stipulated death for child abductions, but the problem has persisted and grown over the millennia," Ozbilici told Al-Monitor. "I am concerned the death penalty would not only fail to decrease the deaths of children, but would lead to their increase because pedophiles, aware of the death sentence they face, would be more inclined to murder the children they abuse to avoid being caught."
According to Ozbilici, Turkey should instead launch a systematic effort to control pedophiles. "We should draw up a map of pedophilia. There are various methods of detecting individuals inclined to abuse. By putting such a system in place, one can ensure a close monitoring of potential offenders," he said. "And what are we doing at present? We raise hell when a child is killed, and after 2 days, we forget about it."
Ilgezdi, meanwhile, believes the crimes against children are being used politically to promote the return of the death penalty. "I am in favor of the toughest punishments in order to stamp out crimes against children. We see, however, that there is an effort to draw on those incidents to introduce a general death penalty," she said.
Calls for the return of capital punishment were first rekindled after the coup attempt in July 2016, which resulted in a ferocious crackdown on followers of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, the accused mastermind of the putsch, and other oppositional quarters. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said he would approve a law reinstating the death penalty if parliament passed it.
Sevil Atasoy, a prominent Turkish forensic scientist, also doubts the deterrence capability of the death penalty. Pointing to statistics from the United States, she tweeted, "If the death penalty is really [instrumental in] reducing murders, why are murders on the decline in US states that do not have the death penalty?" She drew attention also to the long list of Americans who were wrongly condemned to death.
The combined parliamentary seats of the AKP and its ally, the MHP, are short of the majority required for a constitutional amendment to reinstate capital punishment. Such an amendment requires at least 360 votes to be put on a referendum and 400 votes for an outright adoption in the 600-seat legislature. The 2 parties hold 339 seats in total. In other words, the death penalty cannot be brought back without support from the opposition.
Pointing to the parliamentary arithmetic, Erdogan last week appeared to tone down his rhetoric on the issue. "[Reinstating] the death penalty is, of course, a bit difficult. A constitutional amendment is needed," he told a group of citizens, with whom he chatted briefly outside his official residence in Istanbul.
The government, meanwhile, is considering chemical castration for child abusers. In early July, before Erdogan announced his new Cabinet, outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said, "Chemical castration will be thoroughly put into effect in the new period."
In her inquiry motion, Ilgezdi said about 104,500 children were officially reported missing and then found in the 2008-2016 period. She notes that the Interior Ministry refuses to share data on those who remain unaccounted for.
According to Ozbilici, about 30,000 people remain missing in the country. He said 99% of the missing children cases involved minors who ran away and only 1% were abductions, stressing that parental negligence and lack of dialogue in the family were the core reasons of the problem in both cases.
Source: al-monitor.com, Mehmet Cetingulec, July 17, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
