AKP MP denies strip search reports: Honorable woman wouldn't wait 1 year to report

Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Group Deputy Chairwoman Özlem Zengin undermined a volume of reports that strip searches are widely practiced in the Turkish correctional system by saying that the survivors wouldn't have waited as long as they did to report the incidents. HDP Group Deputy Chairwoman Meral Danış Beştaş said that all women were honorable, and that Zengin didn't have the right to state such.

Friday February 19 2021 12:25 pm

This collage photo shows HDP MP Meral Danış Beştaş (L) and AKP MP Özlem Zengin.

Duvar English

Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Group Deputy Chairwoman Özlem Zengin denied the overwhelming volume of strip search reports from the Turkish correctional system by saying that "honorable women" wouldn't wait as long as the survivors did to report such an incident.

"An honorable woman, a woman with morals, wouldn't wait a year [to report a strip search.] This is a fictional narrative," Zengin said, referring to the reports brought into the public's eye by pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu.

"A criminal report is made right after the incident, imagine a woman is strip searched, if a woman is subjected to this, she would report her discomfort right that minute, she wouldn't wait a year," Zengin said

Zengin had previously said that Gergerlioğlu was terrorizing the parliament with his reports of the strip searches right after categorically denying the existence of the practice in Turkey.

"I absolutely do not accept the distinction of women as 'honorable' or 'chaste.' Every woman is honorable, every woman is chaste, and you can't change that. I refuse that," HDP Group Deputy Chairwoman Meral Danış Beştaş said in response to Zengin.

Hakkari Co-mayor Dilek Hatipoğlu from the HDP was also battered and subjected to a strip search upon her detention, Beştaş said, and urged the removal of all legislation that permits the practice.

Zengin undermined Beştaş's statements by implying that the strip search reports had an ulterior motive and saying she was a member of U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen's network, dubbed Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) by the AKP government, and blamed for the failed coup attempt of 2016.