We couldn’t bid farewell to Narin Güran with respect, let’s at least seek justice for her

8-year-old Narin Güran's murder is one of the murders of women of all ages. The case also has its own set of subjective distinctions. Could Narin have been both the victim and the veil of a larger problem that can be explained by tribal-political patterns fed by family politics?

Berrin Sönmez bsonmez@gazeteduvar.com.tr

We don't know much about the life of an 8-year-old girl and what she went through. Our concern was first to find her. Then it became finding her alive. As the days progressed, it turned into an effort to find her dead body, even though no one could say that. How was she killed, why was she killed, who/who killed her? We mentioned Narin for weeks. But, we never really talked about Narin. We never heard from her friends about the things she loved, the things she feared, her dreams, her hopes, and her vision of the future. No one seemed to be curious. But at her funeral, at her grave, ideology was contested. We did not know how to say goodbye to the child we did not know how to keep alive. A society that has no respect for life has no respect for death. Ugly images dominated the funeral of Narin Güran. You know the last duty, even then we could not show Narin Güran the respect she deserved. Examples of social messages at her grave are abundant. One was a wedding dress, one was an apron, one was a toy, and no one thought of respecting Narin's memory with silence even as they bid her farewell from this world. We saw that a country that cannot keep its children alive is also incapable of making a coffin suitable for the body of its children. We saw that she was in a huge adult coffin. When the coffin was huge, the tiny child inside was forgotten and that tiny body was not hesitated to be used for ideologies. 

There are so many people who make their sexism obvious. As if it was the first time a child was murdered. As if it was the first time domestic violence took place. As if for the first time, those who witnessed the violence and murder in the family, those who were aware of it even if they were not witnesses, the neighborhood, in short, as if for the first time, went silent. Tavşantepe village was not the first village to be silent. Villages and neighborhoods were silent for Müslime in Toroslar, Ecrin in Eskişehir, Leyla in Ağrı, Sıla in Tekirdağ and many others. What is a neighborhood, what is a village, a huge police force was silent for Yeşim, a police station was silent. No one at the police station heard a gunshot from the upstairs (!). Everybody was silent. Even the judiciary believed that Yeşim shot herself in the back of the head. Not only that, after Yeşim committed suicide by shooting herself in the back of the head with the pistol of a fellow policeman, the police found the empty shell casing and destroyed it. This is how the police and the court stayed silent. But let's give them their due, remember, the ministry surrendered to the tradition of omerta for years and protected the perpetrators with silence instead of pursuing justice for the HKG, whom it had taken under its protection. It was only when a journalist reported and brought it to the agenda that the judicial process could begin.

In this country, there is no region, village, or neighborhood of gendercide. Everywhere is gendercide. Every woman, every child is sacrificed for the family... Every femicide, every child murder and abuse is fed by a family policy based on gender discrimination. It is the duty of the state to protect people's right to life, but leaving this duty aside and strengthening the male-dominated system in the family at the expense of the lives of women, children, and LGBTI+ individuals is an incentive for murders, it is gendercide.

The series of oddities that attracted attention while Narin Güran was being searched for and continued even after her body was found point to the existence of a unique set of characteristics, similar to all other cases of violence, as well as to every murder case. Although a confidentiality order was imposed on the case and a publication ban was imposed on the news, the statements of the suspects were immediately published in the press. It is not normal for conflicting statements, misleading reports, and voices coming from everyone to create and spread all kinds of sexual fantasies. It is not possible to disseminate and publish all this information pollution without the approval of the judiciary, the ministry, and the government. Therefore, I do not think it is necessary to enumerate the legal justifications for complying with confidentiality orders, even if they are well-intentioned. The government and the institutions instructed by the government are not doing wrong because they do not know these legal and administrative procedures. Naively trying to teach them is a waste of time and energy. The confidentiality orders violated by pro-government media outlets are obviously useful to the government in some way. Apart from family protectionism, we need to look at what other cost-benefit calculations there are in this matter. In crimes against children, the confidentiality decision is made by considering the best interests of the child. Narin is dead, her body has been found and buried, so whose benefit is it to discuss the confidentiality order, and should it be the job of rights defenders?

Who and what does deliberate information pollution serve? What crimes are the huge tribe and politics hiding behind Narin's tiny body? Narin's murder is one of the murders of women of all ages. The case also has its own set of subjective distinctions. Could Narin have been both the victim and the veil of a larger problem that can be explained by tribal-political patterns fed by family politics?

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