We spoke with Meral Danış Beştaş, member of Parliament from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of the lawyers in the Opuz Case, in which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held a state accountable for discrimination caused by gender-based domestic violence for the first time. Beştaş explains how the Opuz Case was foundational for the Istanbul Convention.
The state, which under normal circumstances has no qualms about meddling with our private lives, anchors such cases to the protection of family in a patriarchal manner if the case involves a family.
We used to struggle to extend our rights, and now, we are reduced to a position of trying to preserve them.
We continue to stand in solidarity to defy the oppression against women.