Outrage in Turkey over child marriage

[Shahzaz ud din]

Outrage in Turkey over child marriage
World
by Bushra Nayeem | Published on January 5, 2018

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The highest religious body suggest that children as young as nine can get married under the Islamic law.

Planet ware
Turkey- This outcry for investigating child marriages started when an online glossary of Islamic terms were posted by Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs or Diyanet which is responsible for the administration of religious and educational institutions of Turkey. In the documents it is stated how according to Islam Boys are to be married by the age of 12 and girls by the age of 10.

The wire
The glossary has been removed but 30 MP’s from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) wants more than removing the document and are demanding for further and better investigation of child marriages. Murat Bakan on Twitter said child marriages “violates children’s rights, women’s rights and human rights,”

Care
However according to the civil code, legal age to get married is 18 , 16 with parents consent in Turkey.15 percent of girls in Turkey are estimated to be married before their 18th birthday.



“We cannot ignore this. “There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children. The children are paying the price of their parents’ mistakes.”- Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Twitter
Diyanet then released statement;

“Forcing a young girl to marry someone before they obtain the psychological and biological maturity, and before they gain the responsibility to make a family and become a mother, would not comply with Islam which puts consent and will as a condition in a marriage, Our directorate has never approved early marriages in the past, and it never will.”

Mehmet Gormez, head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, addresses the media.
Children are forcefully married at a very young age where they don’t understand the biological and social technicalities of marriage as an institution. They often fail to do so and when this happen children have to suffer because of their parents mistake. Education is the utmost priority for girls and boys for their bright future and better evolution. Please take child marriage seriously.

 

[xenon54 out]

Diyanet then released statement;

“Forcing a young girl to marry someone before they obtain the psychological and biological maturity, and before they gain the responsibility to make a family and become a mother, would not comply with Islam which puts consent and will as a condition in a marriage, Our directorate has never approved early marriages in the past, and it never will.”

Case closed...

 

[Ahmet Pasha]

It is just exaggerating something to malign muslim countries. That's it.
In the meantime no one is bothered by children being made to mary stick and stones and older people in India. Pathetic hypocrisy.

Outrage in Turkey over child marriage
World
by Bushra Nayeem | Published on January 5, 2018

Facebook
Twitter
Reddit


The highest religious body suggest that children as young as nine can get married under the Islamic law.

Planet ware
Turkey- This outcry for investigating child marriages started when an online glossary of Islamic terms were posted by Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs or Diyanet which is responsible for the administration of religious and educational institutions of Turkey. In the documents it is stated how according to Islam Boys are to be married by the age of 12 and girls by the age of 10.

The wire
The glossary has been removed but 30 MP’s from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) wants more than removing the document and are demanding for further and better investigation of child marriages. Murat Bakan on Twitter said child marriages “violates children’s rights, women’s rights and human rights,”

Care
However according to the civil code, legal age to get married is 18 , 16 with parents consent in Turkey.15 percent of girls in Turkey are estimated to be married before their 18th birthday.



“We cannot ignore this. “There are 3,800 cases and thousands of children. The children are paying the price of their parents’ mistakes.”- Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Twitter
Diyanet then released statement;

“Forcing a young girl to marry someone before they obtain the psychological and biological maturity, and before they gain the responsibility to make a family and become a mother, would not comply with Islam which puts consent and will as a condition in a marriage, Our directorate has never approved early marriages in the past, and it never will.”

Mehmet Gormez, head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, addresses the media.
Children are forcefully married at a very young age where they don’t understand the biological and social technicalities of marriage as an institution. They often fail to do so and when this happen children have to suffer because of their parents mistake. Education is the utmost priority for girls and boys for their bright future and better evolution. Please take child marriage seriously.

 

[Solomon2]

It is just exaggerating something to malign muslim countries. That's it.

Is the following mere satire or does the Diyanet ruling open the door for the conduct the author describes?

WHY I KILLED MY BEST GREEK FRIEND
Posted by Burak Bekdil | Jan 2, 2018 | Insights | 0 ​

Sigma Insight Turkey
January 2, 2018

ISLAMISTS OF VARIOUS NATIONAL FLAVOURS OFTEN DISPLAY THE SAME CONFUSED MIND ABOUT THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN GOD’S COMMANDMENTS AND DICTATES OF THE MODERN STATE.​

“Devout Muslims” tend to defend the former although they grudgingly accept what secular constitutions impose on their lives – if they live in secular regimes; in others man-made laws echo Quranic commandments, like blanket bans on alcohol or pork consumption. The logic is straightforward: X is banned because it is prohibited in our religion.

Turkey theoretically falls into the secular state category although calls for a holy legal system are getting louder and louder by the day, regardless of their unconstitutional ethos: Unconstitutional behaviour is practically not an offense; unreligious behaviour is.

In a span of a week we heard the powerful religious affairs office, Diyanet, issuing a fatwaendorsing the classical Muslim thinking in which a man can renounce his wife unilaterally by pronouncing the word talaq on three occasions. That is against Turkey’s civil laws and the constitution. In fact, by issuing that fatwa Diyanet violated Article 136 of the Constitution that requires Diyanet to function in line with the constitutional principle of secularism. In the other occasion, the provincial Mufti of Hatay told a gathering of parents that they should marry their daughters between the ages of nine and 15, “as commanded both by the Quran and by our Prophet.”

Diyanet’s fatwa and the Mufti’s call for the marriage of nine-year-old girls gave me the opportunity I was craving in the past years. H.F. is, or rather was, my best Greek friend. I tolerated his faith thinking he, being Christian Orthodox, is a “person of the book.” A few years ago H.F. shocked me when he confessed to me that he was a radical polytheist.

I have spent the past years trying, unsuccessfully, to have him converted to Islam. He refused. I waited with patience. He refused again. And I waited. He would not get circumcision and become a Muslim, stubborn H. I told him endless times that he should repent, establish prayer and give zakah. He refused. Which left me with one unpleasant option.

One day as he parked his car, got out and started walking on a dark street I quietly went after him and shot him in the back of his head three times. H.F. died immediately. I walked to the nearest police station to inform law enforcement authorities about the murder. My lawyer arrived at the courthouse and demanded my immediate release. The prosecutor on duty asked my lawyer to legally substantiate his demand to which my lawyer simply answered by citing a Quranic verse (9:5):

“And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.”

I had waited for the sacred months to pass before killing H.F. I had acted exactly in the way the Quran commanded Muslims to act. So, where was the offense? Was it an offense when Diyanet or the Mufti endorsed behaviour that is in line with holy commandments but is not entirely legal? Why not apply the same logic to the murder case? Was every offense stated in the laws not the same from the legal point of view?

Fortunately the prosecutor, being a devout Muslim, ordered my immediate release. Now I can go and discuss conversion with my best Italian friend who, unfortunately, is another polytheist. I hope he will agree to establish prayer.

Burak Bekdil
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based Turkish political columnist who wrote for Hurriyet Daily News [formerly Turkish Daily News] for 29 years. He has covered Turkey for the U.S. weekly Defense News since 1997. Previously, Bekdil worked as Ankara Bureau Chief for Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC-e television. He contributes to annual national defense sector reviews for anti-corruption institutions like Transparency International and Global Integrity. Bekdil is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and regularly writes for the Gatestone Institute and Middle East Quarterly. He also contributes to Perspectives, a journal of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv. James Cuno, art historian and President of the J. Paul Getty Trust, describes Bekdil as "a frequent critic of Prime Minister [now president] Recep Tayyip Erdogan." In 2001, a Heavy Crimes Court in Ankara sentenced Bekdil to a suspended, 20-month prison sentence for his column in which he satirized corruption in the judiciary. Bekdil's comments, quotes and articles have been published in international media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, The Commentator, New York Times, Kathimerini, National Review Online, Algemeiner, NPR, Washington Times, Die Presse, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Financial Times, Al-Monitor, Le Figaro, ABC, El Pais, Stern, Al-Arabiya, Helsingin Sanomat, Racjonalista, Defence Greece, Moyen-Orient, Courier International, ISN Security Watch and Coloquio (of Congreso Judio Latinoamerico) and the Jewish Chronicle (London). (Born: Ankara, 1966; Undergraduate: Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara; Post-graduate: Department of Economics, University of Surrey, United Kingdom)

 

[xenon54 out]

Is the following mere satire or does the Diyanet ruling open the door for the conduct the author describes?

WHY I KILLED MY BEST GREEK FRIEND
Posted by Burak Bekdil | Jan 2, 2018 | Insights | 0 ​

Sigma Insight Turkey
January 2, 2018

ISLAMISTS OF VARIOUS NATIONAL FLAVOURS OFTEN DISPLAY THE SAME CONFUSED MIND ABOUT THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN GOD’S COMMANDMENTS AND DICTATES OF THE MODERN STATE.​

“Devout Muslims” tend to defend the former although they grudgingly accept what secular constitutions impose on their lives – if they live in secular regimes; in others man-made laws echo Quranic commandments, like blanket bans on alcohol or pork consumption. The logic is straightforward: X is banned because it is prohibited in our religion.

Turkey theoretically falls into the secular state category although calls for a holy legal system are getting louder and louder by the day, regardless of their unconstitutional ethos: Unconstitutional behaviour is practically not an offense; unreligious behaviour is.

In a span of a week we heard the powerful religious affairs office, Diyanet, issuing a fatwaendorsing the classical Muslim thinking in which a man can renounce his wife unilaterally by pronouncing the word talaq on three occasions. That is against Turkey’s civil laws and the constitution. In fact, by issuing that fatwa Diyanet violated Article 136 of the Constitution that requires Diyanet to function in line with the constitutional principle of secularism. In the other occasion, the provincial Mufti of Hatay told a gathering of parents that they should marry their daughters between the ages of nine and 15, “as commanded both by the Quran and by our Prophet.”

Diyanet’s fatwa and the Mufti’s call for the marriage of nine-year-old girls gave me the opportunity I was craving in the past years. H.F. is, or rather was, my best Greek friend. I tolerated his faith thinking he, being Christian Orthodox, is a “person of the book.” A few years ago H.F. shocked me when he confessed to me that he was a radical polytheist.

I have spent the past years trying, unsuccessfully, to have him converted to Islam. He refused. I waited with patience. He refused again. And I waited. He would not get circumcision and become a Muslim, stubborn H. I told him endless times that he should repent, establish prayer and give zakah. He refused. Which left me with one unpleasant option.

One day as he parked his car, got out and started walking on a dark street I quietly went after him and shot him in the back of his head three times. H.F. died immediately. I walked to the nearest police station to inform law enforcement authorities about the murder. My lawyer arrived at the courthouse and demanded my immediate release. The prosecutor on duty asked my lawyer to legally substantiate his demand to which my lawyer simply answered by citing a Quranic verse (9:5):

“And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.”

I had waited for the sacred months to pass before killing H.F. I had acted exactly in the way the Quran commanded Muslims to act. So, where was the offense? Was it an offense when Diyanet or the Mufti endorsed behaviour that is in line with holy commandments but is not entirely legal? Why not apply the same logic to the murder case? Was every offense stated in the laws not the same from the legal point of view?

Fortunately the prosecutor, being a devout Muslim, ordered my immediate release. Now I can go and discuss conversion with my best Italian friend who, unfortunately, is another polytheist. I hope he will agree to establish prayer.

Burak Bekdil
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based Turkish political columnist who wrote for Hurriyet Daily News [formerly Turkish Daily News] for 29 years. He has covered Turkey for the U.S. weekly Defense News since 1997. Previously, Bekdil worked as Ankara Bureau Chief for Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC-e television. He contributes to annual national defense sector reviews for anti-corruption institutions like Transparency International and Global Integrity. Bekdil is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and regularly writes for the Gatestone Institute and Middle East Quarterly. He also contributes to Perspectives, a journal of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv. James Cuno, art historian and President of the J. Paul Getty Trust, describes Bekdil as "a frequent critic of Prime Minister [now president] Recep Tayyip Erdogan." In 2001, a Heavy Crimes Court in Ankara sentenced Bekdil to a suspended, 20-month prison sentence for his column in which he satirized corruption in the judiciary. Bekdil's comments, quotes and articles have been published in international media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, The Commentator, New York Times, Kathimerini, National Review Online, Algemeiner, NPR, Washington Times, Die Presse, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Financial Times, Al-Monitor, Le Figaro, ABC, El Pais, Stern, Al-Arabiya, Helsingin Sanomat, Racjonalista, Defence Greece, Moyen-Orient, Courier International, ISN Security Watch and Coloquio (of Congreso Judio Latinoamerico) and the Jewish Chronicle (London). (Born: Ankara, 1966; Undergraduate: Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara; Post-graduate: Department of Economics, University of Surrey, United Kingdom)

Burak Bekdil is known for deliberately writing false articles.

Diyanet and its head made made their stance more than clear about the issue, legal age for marriage and age of consent are 18 in Turkey (contrary to 14 in some european countries) theres no room for any other interpretation.

Diyanet then released statement;

“Forcing a young girl to marry someone before they obtain the psychological and biological maturity, and before they gain the responsibility to make a family and become a mother, would not comply with Islam which puts consent and will as a condition in a marriage, Our directorate has never approved early marriages in the past, and it never will.”



Mehmet Gormez, head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, addresses the media.

Children are forcefully married at a very young age where they don’t understand the biological and social technicalities of marriage as an institution. They often fail to do so and when this happen children have to suffer because of their parents mistake. Education is the utmost priority for girls and boys for their bright future and better evolution. Please take child marriage seriously.

 

[Solomon2]

Burak Bekdil is known for deliberately writing false articles. Diyanet and its head made made their stance more than clear about the issue, legal age for marriage and age of consent are 18 in Turkey -

Read carefully: B. Bekdil does NOT claim that Diyanet issued the statement about boys getting married at 12 and girls at 9.

At the same time, while Diyanet issued a statement that it doesn't "support" such marriage, they refrained from employing language to absolutely forbid it, correct?

 

[xenon54 out]

Read carefully: B. Bekdil does NOT claim that Diyanet issued the statement about boys getting married at 12 and girls at 9.

Those are not Fatwa by Diyanet, its was a portal describing religious terms which is as it is.
For diyanet those are non-binding but the civil code of Republic of Turkey, anything else including Bekdils tantrums are empty noise.

 

[Solomon2]

For diyanet those are non-binding but the civil code of Republic of Turkey, anything else including Bekdils tantrums are empty noise.

What are the punishments for underage marriages in the civil code? And who gets punished: the minors, their parents, the official performing the ceremony...?

 

[xenon54 out]

What are the punishments for underage marriages in the civil code? And who gets punished: the minors, their parents, the official performing the ceremony...?

I think it depends on the age, there are exsamples of marrying at 15 and the groom getting 8 years and parents each 4 years, if booth are underage state takes them away and parents get punished, if younger then it goes into abuse category which can be punished with not less than 10 years.
For sexual intercourse its punished with not less than 16 years, and for severe crimes life sentences.

Ofcourse the senteces depend on various factors but those are the minimum punishments as far as i have understood.

 

[damm1t]

What are the punishments for underage marriages in the civil code? And who gets punished: the minors, their parents, the official performing the ceremony...?

Quoting Burak Bokdil is alone shows you have hostile attitude towards Turkey. Turks will never ever allow child marriage even Diyanet announce that it's halal... But every nation has rotten eggs thus the State should action against it.

 

[-SINAN-]

At the same time, while Diyanet issued a statement that it doesn't "support" such marriage, they refrained from employing language to absolutely forbid it, correct?

Diyanet do not have any authority to forbid or allow anything. Turkey is a secular state and ruled by constitution, not by fatwas.

 

[prashantazazel]

A few extremists can't change a secular nation. Once you've tasted freedom, you can't go back.

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

Child marriage???? What's about sex education - all sorts including including gay - from the 7th grade in the USA????? More than half of the under 16s are engaged in dangerous sexual activities!!! And, teen pregnancies are rampant in some communities.....

 

[Solomon2]

A few extremists can't change a secular nation. Once you've tasted freedom, you can't go back.

Oh, my, if only it worked that way! But I'm a history buff and I know that peoples have many times slipped from freedom to tyranny, especially if tyranny pays well.

 

[Divergent]

This is disgusting and ridiculous