REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül had important considerations on the agenda before the "Workshop on Cooperation in Prevention of Crime" organized by the Ministry of Justice.

Concerning the regulation for child abuse, Minister Gül said, "The Commission will start to work tomorrow. We will discuss in detail all the measures, including chemical castration, and all our instruments, means and the things we will do pursuant to laws, regulations and administrative measures."

The outstanding headlines of the speech by the Minister of Justice Gül are as follows:

This vulgarly, flagrant assault against a 4.5 year old child in Adana is a disgusting offense and we condemn it strongly and vigorously. This is, of course, a murder beyond abuse. The thing that the traitor has done is a murder beyond child abuse. In other words, it is an issue, a study field for which we took all the measures as State so that no one will ever really experience such acts again. In this respect, our Adana Chief Public Prosecutor's Office made an investigation about the incident made by a person invited to a henna night or a wedding as a guest, and prepared the case indictment without delay. He filed the case with a 66-year-penalty request and prepared the indictment. He demanded the issues such as discretion or remission not to be applied. In this regard, the judiciary will continue to be a close follower of this issue.

RELATED COMMISSION WILL START WORKING TOMORROW

In order to determine some other steps to be taken in this regard, especially the prevention of abuses against our children, we handled this issue in the Council of Ministers under the presidency of our President, and a commission will start working tomorrow under the presidency of our Deputy Prime Minister. In this way, we had the opportunity to evaluate what we have prepared. By the workshops, we will lay down the issues such as increasing the penalties in criminal laws or what measures to take in execution system. We will discuss in detail all the measures, including castration, chemical castration as you have just asked, and all our instruments, means and the things we will do pursuant to laws, regulations and administrative measures. But the most important thing is to prevent before bringing before courts, before committing crime, in other words, to remove the ways going to offence, correction. How to raise awareness of the child against abuse is the responsibility of all parts of the society, family, environment and school. What can be done to raise awareness of parents? What can be done to raise awareness of the society? We need to do these all together. When considered by heaviest penalties in continental Europe, our country is the one that has increased such penalties, especially after the murder of Özgecan, but again we do not see it enough. We will not let even a single child of us experience such an abuse, let them not attempt to commit such an offence, and we will never hesitate to carry out whatsoever needed in this regard. We will submit it to our Prime Minister and the President after the Deputy Prime Minister and we will lay down all the measures related to these issues without delay.

WE WILL GIVE THE FINAL FORM

Tomorrow, all relevant ministers, I mean, the issues related with the Ministry of Family Affairs and their related legislation will of course be discussed in detail. The proposals of our Ministry, duties fall under other ministries, the media, society, family as a whole and the measures we must take will be laid down. Our government has taken very important steps as regard to the issue, but we do not see it enough. What more do we need to do will be discussed of course, and after evaluating them together, the final form will be given to them before the Prime Ministry and our President.

WE ARE SENSITIVE TO THE PRECISIONS

We will be in an effort to overcome all these problems with the sensitivity of every part of the society, and our Government will take any other measures needed to be taken in this matter. I would like to further express that, the court did not see the need to reduce the penalty on discretion in blackmail, sexual blackmail offence in İzmir recently, and sentenced a penalty of 132 years. Again, I would like to state that both the judiciary and members of judiciary are also sensitive to these precisions in the society in the indictment of Adana Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. However if there is a deficiency in this issue, I would like to remind the sensitivity to this issue, including the sensitivity of the judiciary.