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Turkey's 'hedonist' singles become new target of AKP heavyweight

Numan Kurtulmus, deputy chair of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party who opened a Pandora’s box on the Istanbul Convention, has come under fire once more for remarks on “over hedonist singles.”
A woman wearing a face mask raises her fist in Ankara, on August 5, 2020, during a demonstration to demand the government does not withdraw from the Istanbul Conventio, a landmark treaty, on preventing domestic violence. - The protests were the biggest in recent weeks as anger grows over the rising number of women killed by men in the past decade since the Istanbul Convention. The treaty's official title is the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic viol

Numan Kurtulmus, deputy chair of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is used to the rage of women. In July, he opened a Pandora’s box on the Istanbul Convention, an international accord that combats violence against women and domestic violence, by saying that its ratification had been a mistake. The debate that followed has taken thousands of women across the country to the streets, resulted in several online campaigns and created a crack in the ruling party on the future of the convention.

Next, the AKP heavyweight turned an accusing finger to the country’s 3 million-plus single population. Invited to speak at a conference of Turkey’s civil servants union, MEMUR-SEN, Kurtulmus lauded the family as the “strong foundation” and the “stem cell” of the Turkish nation. “Undermining the family is one of the most cunning [means] to destroy a nation,” he said. “Strong individualism, coupled with hedonistic trends … have put dynamite in the foundations of the family. … [Those individualists] who live alone and see marriage as unnecessary are among the main problems we see now against the family and its values.”

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