“It will be like the Taliban regime,” says Melek Önder, asked what will happen to women’s rights if Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is re-elected as president of Turkey in the election on Sunday.
Önder is a spokesperson for We Will Stop Femicides (Kadin Cinayetlerini Durduracagiz), one of the most active groups in Turkey’s women’s movement. The platform was founded in 2010 after Cem Garipoğlu, 17, murdered his girlfriend Münevver Karabulut, also 17. It collects data on femicides and campaigns against violence against women.
“We see that all kinds of dictators do the same – at the beginning they take away women’s rights, and then they ban other things, like music,” says the 35-year-old as she sips tea in a coffee shop in the Şişli district of Istanbul. “[Erdoğan’s government] is a threat – not only for women, but also for men. They are against modernity.”
