Turkey's child murders revive death penalty debate

Despite the public outcry, it is unlikely that Turkey will reinstate capital punishment.
A Turkish supporter of capital punishment holds a hanging rope as activists launch a petition campaign for its reinstitution in Ankara March 29, 2011. Public debate on the issue has been revived following a number of sexually motivated murders recently committed in the country which abolished the death penalty on January 15, 2003. The group also protests the reprieve given to Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) whose death penalty was approved by the appeals cou
A Turkish supporter of capital punishment holds a hanging rope as activists launch a petition campaign for its reinstitution in Ankara, March 29, 2011. - REUTERS/Umit Bektas
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Semih Idiz
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“I can find no words to say after seeing my baby yesterday in that condition. I am calling on the state to hang him as an example to all. They should not give him a glass of water but hang him in order to douse the fire in my heart.”

This desperate intonation came from the mother of 6-year-old Gizem Akdeniz, whose fate scorched the conscience of the nation after her brutally disfigured body was found. Press reports said she was murdered by a male relative who reportedly wanted revenge on Gizem’s family for refusing to let him marry her older sister.

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