What a shame
KANAT ATKAYA
I think N.Ç. does not believe in justice anymore. I do not either; that makes two of us. If I ask: “Are there any others who do not believe?” I am sure there will be many hands up. I cannot make an estimate as to how many people we would reach. But I know the dimension of the support that the Oct. 9 article titled “We are men” received. In this respect, I am sure we are quite a crowd.
N.Ç. is our child who, in 2002 while she was 13, was “marketed” in the southeastern town of Mardin to 26 people from the “civilian and military administration.” When she complained, they told the 13-year-old girl, “You have slept with them knowingly.” Those who said this were not limited to 26 people; those who defended them and the panel of judges who listened to them seconded that view.
Charges were rejected, arrests were ended, sentences were reduced; those who were released were able to re-establish their positions in the administration. The case reached this day crawling slowly. And it stopped at that place where it had finally crawled into: The Supreme Court of Appeals also said, “Yes, N.Ç. has acted knowingly.”
Do you remember the court proceedings, minutes of the statements and the case file? I also do not remember; I went into the archives to look. Whoever is able to stand it, with a strong heart and stomach, should find the case file and read it.
Actually, there is no need to find the file; with a little effort, it can be reached over the Internet, at least a part of it: It stands there in the cyber world as it is, both N.Ç.’s and the defendants’ statements. There were those who said “I am incompetent” during the interrogation to “get away with it,” and those who said “I actually was very sorry for her, but…”
Especially to be able to read what N.Ç. was saying, you need to have a very strong heart, to have all your nerves removed and to have a cast-iron stomach. I say that you need a strong stomach, heart and mind to read; I believe those who have committed the action must have had neither stomach nor conscious.
I am sure N.Ç. does not believe in justice anymore. I do not either. Well, what about the conscious of society? Well, then what about divine justice? What a shame!
Kanat Atkaya is a columnist for Daily Hürriyet in which this piece appeared Nov. 3. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.
