“It has been a year since the death of transgender sex worker Hande Kader and not a single suspect has been found and brought before the law,” reads a petition on Change.org, one of Turkey’s most widely used protest websites.
The petition is the latest in a year-long campaign launched by transgender activist Deniz Sapka, who has been trying to keep up the pressure to bring Kader's killers to justice. The tone of this last petition reflects the frustration of Turkey’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community with the justice system regarding the death of 22-year-old Kader, who was burned, mutilated and killed a year ago after she was seen getting in a car with one or more clients in downtown Istanbul. Her body was found 10 days later.
Aug. 18 marks the first anniversary of a major mobilization in 2016, when hundreds of people took to the streets of Istanbul, Ankara and other cities to urge members of the parliament to protect the rights of the LGBTI, ensure their security and find and prosecute those who brutally killed Kader.
“I am angry, angry that the mobilization we have realized has died down, angry that no steps were taken to bring the responsible to justice, angry that even Kader’s family just wants to hush the whole thing up,” Sapka told Al-Monitor in a phone interview. “We had thought back then that the public interest in the tragedy of Hande Kader would be a turning point. It was not. If anything, it is worse than before,” she added, in a thinly-veiled reference to the banned gay pride parade this year.
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