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Most Turkish newspapers are reporting the coming into effect of a Council of Europe treaty designed to end domestic violence.
HURRIYET runs the headline “Historical day for women,” reporting that the ‘Istanbul Convention’, signed by Turkey in 2011, will count any kind of abuse – physical, economic, psychological or sexual – from a partner or husband (even if the couple live together or apart) as “domestic violence”.
The front page of today’s MILLIYET reads: “Right of asylum is the remedy for violence,” adding that women suffering domestic abuse will have the right to take refuge in one of the countries that signed the treaty. The newspaper reported that Turkey, Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, Andorra, France and Sweden are signatories.
VATAN quoted Gulsun Bilgehan, an MP from Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party saying that 189 women were killed in Turkey in 2013 and 129 at the first six months of 2014 in domestic violence. Bilgehan said that violence against women is also a problem also in developed countries: “Last year in Sweden 80 women were killed, 45 in Spain and 36 in Portugal.”
The front page of today’s HABERTURK reads: “Syria is Istanbul’s new district.” The newspaper reported that there are almost 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. The highest number is in Istanbul which hosts 330,000 Syrian refugees, a higher number in 22 official camps which house 222,000 refugees, the newspaper claimed. The daily said only nine districts out of 39 do not a Syrian refugee population.
HABERTURK released the number of Syrian refugees in five other cities other than Istanbul: Gaziantep, 220,000; Hatay, 190,000; Sanliurfa, 170,000; Ankara, 30,000; and Izmir, 13,000.
YENISAFAK reported on United Nations Relief and Works Agency spokesperson Chris Gunness’ emotional interview with Al Jazeera TV yesterday in which Gunness broke down on air while explaining that 19 people had died and 125 were wounded in a UN school in Gaza.
A total of 84 UN facilities have been damaged since the Israeli military operation started on July 7, including schools and health centers.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in the offensive, now in its fourth week. The United Nations is hosting 140,000 displaced persons in UN facilities, including schools.
SABAH leads with the news of Turkish rock star Murat Gogebakan’s death from a heart attack due to leukemia. The newspaper said Gogebakan’s last song was written for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s current presidential election campaign.
Gogebakan had been undergoing cancer treatment since 2009 and had been in intensive care in Istanbul for the past ten days. He was born in 1968 in Turkey's southern city Adana, and studied music in Ankara State Conservatoire.
