Sexual threat against HDP leader’s wife backfires as Turks rally around women
A threatening tweet against a jailed Kurdish opposition leader’s wife has Turkey up in arms against the patriarchal mindset that threatens women with sexual violence.
On June 13, Turkish social media was rocked by a crude threat from a pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) account. The target was Selahattin Demirtas and his wife, Basak Demirtas. Demirtas, the former chair of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), has been imprisoned since Nov. 2016 along with his co-chair Figen Yuksekdag.
Vedat Muti tweeted that Demirtas “has been in prison while his wife is free," saying, "She must be hot by now, one should extinguish her fire.”
