WOMEN opposing the Turkish government were targeted again today as police took at least six into custody during raids in Ankara and Istanbul on spurious anti-terror allegations.

The operation took place as part of investigations initiated by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office against those accused of “being members of an illegal organisation.”

This is often used to target the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) which the authoritarian Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan brand as terrorists linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), despite its status as a legal political party.

HDP Ankara executive member Zeliha Unlu, HDP Mamak District executive Remziye Guclu and HDP Mamak co-chair Lale Ekmen were among those detained in yesterday’s raids.

Gulistan Ozgan, one of Turkey’s Peace Mothers — a non-violent women’s civil-rights movement formed in 1999 — was also held by police. 

Women are at the forefront of resistance in Turkey where they face discrimination and pressure from the government.

Mr Erdogan believes they should only exist in the domestic sphere and insists that women should marry and have at least five children.

He believes sexual equality is “against nature.”

In order to remove women from political life, the Turkish state tried to ban the HDP co-chair system which gives equal representation for women at all levels of the party.

It branded the system “terrorism,” insisting that the women had been selected for their elected posts by the PKK, but the men were not tarnished with the same accusation.

Despite Mr Erdogan’s claims that it is impossible to discriminate on grounds of sex, Turkey remains one of the world’s most unequal societies.

Women are paid 17.8 per cent less than men and have an unemployment rate of 14.2 per cent, rising to more than a quarter of those aged under 25.

Turkey ranks 130th of 153 nations in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 gender-gap index.

HDP Ankara co-chair Zeyno Bayramoglu told the Star that the party was being targeted for opposing anti-women measures.

She explained that the government was not stopping murders and violence against women, and was refusing to apply the measures contained in the  Istanbul Convention.

The Turkish state, she said, is seeking now to legitimise child marriage based on religious rulings.

“The only ones to stand against these policies are the women and HDP,” Ms Bayramoglu said. 

“We should also state that we find this operation very curious, being just before our national women’s conference on January 18-19. Neither repression nor detention nor arrest will lead us to step back from our struggle for democracy, peace, justice and freedom.”