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ISTANBUL — Authorities ministers and opposition leaders in Turkey have spoken out over a girl’s claims that she was married off on the age of 6 in a scandal that has shone a highlight on the nation’s spiritual sects.
The claims emerged in divorce and prison proceedings lodged final 12 months by the girl, now 24. She alleges that her father, who heads a basis linked to the influential Ismailaga neighborhood, married her to a 29-year-old sect member as a baby and that she was sexually abused by her husband from that age.
Revealed within the left-leaning Birgun newspaper on Saturday, the allegations have led to outrage amongst main politicians and the general public.
“The data that one of our children was subjected to abuse on the age of 6 has deeply shaken consciences,” Mustafa Sentop, parliament speaker and probably the most senior determine within the ruling Justice and Growth Get together (AKP) to touch upon the case, tweeted Thursday.
“The case was dropped at the judiciary and the Ministry of Household and Social Companies was additionally concerned. … We’ll comply with the method so that each one facets of the incident are clarified and people accountable obtain the heaviest punishment.”
Throughout a finances debate in parliament, Ozgur Ozel, deputy chief of lawmakers from the opposition Republican Folks’s Get together (CHP), mentioned the claims had “shaken” Turkey and known as for a minister to reply legislators’ questions on the case.
“Because the rulers of this nation, they should come out and say one thing … on this meeting,” he mentioned.
Many political and societal teams known as for varied spiritual sects, with adherents estimated within the thousands and thousands, to be closed.
“That is the dire penalties of the AKP’s administration strategy, which has opened up state alternatives to cults and communities since its coming to energy,” the Ataturkist Thought Affiliation, which promotes the secularism of Turkey’s founder, mentioned in a press release.
The Ismailaga neighborhood is one in every of many who fall beneath the umbrella of the Naqshbandi-Khalidi order, a Sufi department of Sunni Islam that additionally encompasses sects such because the Menzil, Suleymancilar and Iskenderpasa. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is alleged to have been a follower of the latter and to have retained ties to the group.
The funeral of the Ismailaga sect’s longtime chief earlier this 12 months was attended by Erdogan and Inside Minister Suleyman Soylu.
Beneath the AKP’s 20-year rule, spiritual sects, often known as tarikats, have additional prolonged their affect into schooling, the place they function cheap pupil dormitories along with operating Quran programs for youngsters.
The sects’ function in pupil lodging got here beneath criticism following a hearth at a Suleymancilar-run college dormitory in Adana, southern Turkey, in November 2016 that left 11 youngsters and a workers member lifeless. Medical pupil Enes Kara dedicated suicide in January after describing the hours of prayer and spiritual tutoring he was pressured to undertake at a tarikat-run dorm.
The Gulen motion rose to turn into probably the most highly effective sect beneath Erdogan’s rule, infiltrating its members into branches of the Turkish state because it allied with the AKP. A cut up within the early 2010s in the end led to a 2016 coup try broadly blamed on Gulenists.
Many imagine the vacuum left by the expulsion of tens of hundreds of suspected Gulenists from Turkey’s judiciary, police and different state organs has at the very least been partially stuffed by the members of different tarikats.
A 12 months after the coup try, CHP lawmaker Mahmut Tanal mentioned the Menzil sect had gained vital sway within the inside, justice and well being ministries. “Law enforcement officials take references from the Menzil with a view to be appointed and promoted,” he mentioned. “How can such a factor be attainable?”
The intercourse abuse case is tinged with claims that parts throughout the state have tried to melt its ramifications.
Following the grievance of the alleged sufferer, recognized solely as H.Ok.G., an Istanbul prosecutor ready an indictment on Oct. 30 towards her father Yusuf Ziya Gumusel, head of the Ismailaga-affiliated Hiranur Basis, his spouse and the alleged abuser. The prosecution is asking for 27-year jail phrases. The accused deny the allegations.
Sera Kadigil, a lawmaker for the Staff Get together of Turkey, filed motions with a number of authorities ministries, one questioning if there had been an obstruction of justice within the case. She famous that issues about H.Ok.G.’s age had been raised a decade earlier and requested why the suspects weren’t being held in jail whereas the investigation was underway.
Canan Kaftancioglu, head of the CHP’s Istanbul department, posted photographs taken from the Twitter account of a former AKP district mayor, İsmail Erdem, exhibiting him assembly Gumusel in 2016 and praising his basis.
In a parliamentary movement, Huseyin Kacmaz of the Peoples’ Democratic Get together demanded to know why an investigation had not been launched 10 years in the past.
“This case was supposed to be coated up and this systematic violence continued for years,” he mentioned. “Due to this fact, it’s important that those that coated up this crime in addition to the perpetrators of this crime are uncovered.”
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