Feminists and the women organizations will gather at Galata Bridge, which connects the two sides of the famous Golden Horn estuary in Istanbul, in order to protest the prison sentence that İstanbul’s 1^st Criminal Court of Peace gave Gülcan Köse for acting without shame while catching fish at the bridge. The meeting will take place at 11.00 in the morning on Saturday July 5.

The court had sentenced Köse based on the testimony of the male witnesses who claimed  that she had offended public morality.

“Take out the article ‘the acts without shame’ from the law code”

Making their announcement under the name of ‘Our Bodies Are Ours Initiative’, the women demand from the Parliament to remove article 225 titled “Acts Without Shame” in the section of “Crimes Against Public Morality” from the Penal Code.

The women remind that the existence of concepts such as “rules regarding public morality”, “decency customs”, “acts without shame” legitimize the discrimination and inequality against women. They stress that the women murderers make use of the “unjust provocation discount” by referring to excuses such as how their wives were wearing a tights or tight clothes or how flirtatious they were in their relations with others.

The Initiative also mentioned that the men who assaulted sexually some women who were enjoying the New Year celebrations at Taksim Square in Istanbul were able to get away with the meager 57 YTL (about 5 US dollars) fine.

“We decide what we want to wear, not the judiciary”

“We object the control over our bodies exercised by the men, the family and the state. We are against all kinds of written and verbal rules and regulations about what we want to wear. The crimes against women, which are designed to control our bodies, are still legitimate. Because of this, we face violence. The control over women bodies of the male-dominated society and the general trend in the society towards conservatism are legitimized through laws as “the public morality.”

The Initiative declares that the women can decide what they want to wear and stroll on Galata Bridge the way they want. The women have the right move the way the want. Our bodies are ours. (TK/TB)