Hatice Kavran said the cases of Gülistan Doku, Rojbin Kabaiş and Ipek Er cannot be treated as isolated incidents, stressing that violence, threats and the system of impunity targeting women, particularly in Kurdistan, constitute a deliberate policy and require an independent investigation to be exposed.
Hatice Kavran, a member of the European Kurdish Women’s Movement Platform, said the years-long uncertainty in the Gülistan Doku case is not an ordinary disappearance or murder case, but is directly linked to the responsibility of state officials, a shield of impunity and a cycle of systematic violence.
Kavran said the role of public officials in the killing of Gülistan Doku has now come to light, adding that clarifying this case should mark a turning point and become a determined field of struggle to confront those responsible for similar killings that remain shrouded in darkness.
Kavran recalled that the family’s search efforts were obstructed by state officials tasked with protecting the public, stressing that the outcome reached after six years proves a murder and that the governor and civil authorities of the time acted as accomplices in order to protect the main suspect. Kavran also pointed to former Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and his statement that “everyone was questioned,” saying: “The governor of the time, together with people who have no values beyond money, thought they could cover up this crime by acting as accomplices to protect his son, the killer. In Turkey, particularly in Kurdistan, we see from time to time in the media that all women are targets of state officials. This cannot be a coincidence; the frequent involvement of soldiers, police and village guards in such cases, and the fact that they go unpunished and are covered up, shows this.”
Kavran outlined the gravity of violence, killings and threats against women in Kurdistan through statistics reflected in the media and courts, recalling that of 793 official complaints filed between 1997 and 2021, 118 were rape cases and 675 were cases of harassment. She said that 482 of the perpetrators were police officers and 143 were soldiers, adding that Diyarbakir (Amed), Şırnak, Hakkari, Van and Batman ranked highest in the number of cases. She also noted that unreported cases due to blackmail and threats are estimated to be three to four times higher than the known figures.
Blackmail and driving women to suicide
Kavran said there has been a systematic targeting of university students in recent years, stressing that the killings of Rojin Kabaiş and Gülistan Doku are among the clearest examples of this. She said many young women are trapped through blackmail, threatened with compromising images and with disclosure to their families. Under such pressure, women are driven to suicide or condemned to silence. Kavran pointed to the case of Ipek Er, who died by suicide after being raped by Musa Orhan, and described Orhan being tried without detention and protected as “proof that the state covers up crimes.”
Impunity is a weapon of war
Kavran said such crimes are used as a “weapon of war” in conflict zones, and that the state allows these acts through impunity in order to impose its authority. She added that prisons are also at the center of a similar reality. Prison officials act with the mentality of “my rule applies here,” Kavran said, noting that violations against women affiliated with the Gülen movement after July 15 received coverage in the world press, while similar attacks against Kurdish women have been ignored.
Hatice Kavran stressed this cannot be explained simply by statelessness, noting that in democratic countries such crimes carry the harshest penalties. Kavran described the situation in Turkey as “the immorality of illegitimate powers,” saying: “This is an illegitimate and systematic war waged by the Turkish state against Kurds. A struggle must be built through the Gülistan Doku case against this mentality, which commits every crime in order to make its occupation permanent.”
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