On Saturday 14, female MPs of Turkish opposition party CHP (Republican People’s Party) protested violence against women with Chilean women’s Las Tesis performance in the Parliament. Last week, women were attacked by the police in Istanbul and Ankara while they were protesting male violence by staging Las Tesis performance “The rapist is you”. Seven demonstrators were detained in Istanbul. Then other demonstrations were planned in Istanbul and İzmir.
CHP Deputy Sera Kadigil said the aim was to highlight the crisis of femicide in the country, and she addressed Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who was also in the parliament. “There is a dance that started in Chile to draw attention to violence against women all over the world: Las Tesis,” she said. “Thanks to you, Turkey is the only country in which you must have (parliamentary) immunity to participate,” she added by referring to the detentions during the protests on the streets.
Soylu said everyone shared the pain of each woman killed in Turkey, adding the song was sung in Chile for different reasons. He also rejected the lyrics calling Turkish police, judges, the state or the president a “rapist” or “killer”.