Sex case grips country amid young-brides split

Hüseyin ?zmez denies having sex with a 14-year-old girl. He just defends a man's right to marry one.

?zmez, 76, a columnist at Turkey's Islamist Vakit newspaper, is pleading not guilty to charges of sexually abusing a minor in a case that has gripped the country of 70 million. Since his release on bail on Oct. 28, ?zmez has publicly defended Islamic rules that permit girls to wed below the legal age of 16.

"A girl who's reached puberty, who's having periods, is of age, according to our beliefs," ?zmez told national television the day he got out. "And if she's of age, she can marry."

?zmez returns to court on Dec. 16. Whatever the eventual outcome, the case has widened the gulf between Turks promoting Islamic law and those who support the secular system put in place by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920s. The state religious authority, which employs imams at Turkey's 80,000 mosques, opposes child marriage, though the practice remains rife.

Thirty-nine percent of married women in the southern province of Şanlıurfa were 16 or younger on their wedding day, according to the Istanbul-based Social Democracy Foundation, which is campaigning against the practice.

They typically marry in religious ceremonies and delay civil marriage until they're of age, according to the foundation. "As long as you have people in Turkey who say this is okay and who use Islam to justify it, it remains a big problem," says Amanda Ak?akoca, an analyst at the European Policy Center in Brussels.

Out on bail
?zmez is accused of the abuse of the girl, called B.C. in the indictment, on several occasions in Istanbul and Bursa provinces. His first hearing was in September in Bursa, northwest of the country. He was released after a second hearing, when the court ruled he no longer needed to be kept in jail.

His lawyer, Bülent Demir, says ?zmez will be found not guilty next month because there is no forensic evidence. He also argues that ?zmez is the victim of a witch-hunt that was intensified because of his religious background.

"Without waiting for the result of the court case, everyone's behaving as if he did it," Demir said in an interview. "His Islamic identity has been used as a weapon against him."

The Milliyet newspaper's cover story on Nov. 21, illustrated with a photo of ?zmez, cited forensic data showing that as many as 120 child-abuse cases are being reported each week. "Turkey, What Happened to You?" was the front-page headline.

After ?zmez's release, female lawmakers from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's party responded by proposing laws doubling prison sentences for child abuse.

Fatma Şahin, a sponsor of the child crime bill, said the ?zmez case is "upsetting" and highlights the need for penalties that are "tough enough to deter." It has nothing to do with religion, she said. Erdoğan, 54, has passed rights laws, many aimed at protecting women, as part of his bid to edge Turkey closer to the European Union. It started membership talks in 2005.

A 2004 overhaul of the penal code stiffened penalties for so-called "honor killings," the murder of women seen as staining a family's reputation, and classified rape within marriage as a crime for the first time.

Şahin said Turkey, which ranked 123rd of 130 countries in a World Economic Forum study of gender equality, is "weaker on the implementation" of such measures.

The EU's Nov. 5 report on Turkey's progress to membership said "domestic violence, honor killings and early and forced marriages are still a serious problem." At the same time, Erdoğan also has promoted measures that opposition parties say were inspired by Islam.

This year, he attempted to end the ban on headscarves at universities. That law, later overturned by the Constitutional Court, prompted prosecutors to demand Erdoğan be removed from politics for undermining the secular constitution. In 2004, he tried to make adultery a crime, dropping his proposal only after EU pressure.

Canan Arıtman, a lawmaker from the opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP said she has needed 24-hour armed protection since March, after she called on families not to make their young daughters wear Islamic-style headscarves. Such practices deny girls the right to remain children, she said. Arıtman said she frequently meets women who are aware of sexual abuse within their own families, though they feel powerless to stop it.

"I've told a lot of women that they have to go to the courts, but they refuse," Arıtman said. "They say they'll be left on the street."

Levels of abuse in Turkey are probably no different than in Western Europe, though are half as likely to be reported, said Fatih Yavuz, a specialist in forensic medicine at Istanbul University who is regularly consulted in child abuse cases.

Gülsün Kanat, whose Purple Roof Foundation helps women who suffer from domestic violence, said she's concerned about the ?zmez case because his prestige as a writer on religion backs up his comments on sexual maturity and marriage. "It gives other people the green light," she said.