Turkey: a man tried for having married his little girl with a disciple of a religious brotherhood
Audio 01:32
The Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, photographed from the Sea of Marmara (illustration).
Pixabay/Falco
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
It's a sordid affair that comes out years later.
In Istanbul, the trial of a father linked to one of the most influential religious brotherhoods in Turkey, the İsmailağa community, began on Monday 30 January.
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With our correspondent in Istanbul,
Manon Chaplain
The man is accused of having married his six-year-old daughter to one of his disciples, 23 years his senior, also in the dock.
The two men face 22 and 68 years in prison respectively.
The trial had not started on Monday morning when already hundreds of activists and lawyers rushed into the courthouse in the district of Kartal, in Istanbul.
Very quickly, the courtroom proved to be too small to accommodate the crowd.
Gözde does not hide his disappointment.
"
We came to support the cause of women,
" she said.
What happened to this young girl is not an isolated case, it is very common in Turkey, and the authorities are trying to cover it up.
The more of us there are in court, the more we can press for the sentences against the defendants to be as high as possible.
»
Outside the court, about fifty members of the İsmailağa community gathered in support of the defendants.
Handan İlağa, a lawyer, is worried to see so many of them: "
The brotherhoods and religious sects have become very powerful over the past 20 years, and we have no idea what is going on there since they are not monitored.
They can commit all kinds of crimes behind their closed doors.
»
In the middle of the presidential campaign, this trial is not anecdotal.
The opposition regularly condemns the complacency of power towards these religious brotherhoods.
“
If this case hadn't been so exposed to the public, the government would have once again protected them.
There, they cannot, there is too much evidence.
We not only hope to win this lawsuit, we hope to shut down these congregations forever
,” says lawyer Fulya Dağlı.
The next session will take place in a month, on February 27.
Three and a half months before the presidential election, this trial raises the question of the weight of religious communities in Turkey.
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