That's the question being asked by the Independent and others in the wake of the murder of Ahmet Yildiz, 26, a physics student who represented his country at an international gay gathering in San Francisco last year. Sadly, the reactionary power of religion - in this case Islam - and the slavish adherence to beliefs increasingly out of step with science and modern knowledge is most likely the motivation behind Yildiz's death. What is even more distressing is that some believe that Yildiz's family may be behind his murder. Now the question is whether or not any meaningful investigation of his death will actually occur and - if it was a so-called honor killing - will those responsible be properly prosecuted and punished. As a parent, I cannot conceive having one of my children killed - that mindset is so far beyond fucked up that I cannot even begin to understand it - and to be candid, I believe religious views that would cause such an act clearly need to be stamped out. One can only hope some in the European Union will keep up the pressure on Turkey and other reactionary member countries to either get with the 21st century and stop persecuting gays NOW or be expelled from the EU. Here are highlights from the Independent's story:*
In a corner of Istanbul today, the man who might be described as Turkey's gay poster boy will be buried – a victim, his friends believe, of the country's deepening friction between an increasingly liberal society and its entrenched conservative traditions. Ahmet Yildiz, 26, a physics student who represented his country at an international gay gathering in San Francisco last year, was shot leaving a cafe near the Bosphorus strait this week.
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"He fell victim to a war between old mentalities and growing civil liberties," says Sedef Cakmak, a friend and a member of the gay rights lobby group Lambda. "I feel helpless: we are trying to raise awareness of gay rights in this country, but the more visible we become, the more we open ourselves up to this sort of attack." Against this backdrop, the issues of women's rights, sexuality and the place of religion in the public arena have been particularly contentious. Ahmet Yildiz's crime, his friends say, was to admit openly to his family that he was gay.
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The family pressure increased, the friend explained. "They wanted him to go back home, see a doctor who could cure him, and get married." Shortly after coming out this year, Mr Yildiz went to a prosecutor to complain that he was receiving death threats. The case was dropped. Five months later, he was dead. The police are now investigating his murder. For gay rights groups, the student's inability to get protection was a typical by-product of the indifference, if not hostility, with which a broad swathe of Turkish society views homosexuality. The military, for example, sees it as an "illness". Men applying for an exemption to obligatory military service on grounds of homosexuality must provide proof – either in the form of an anal examination, or photographs.
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Turkey has a history of honour killings. A government survey earlier this year estimated that one person every week dies in Istanbul as a result of honour killings. It put the nationwide death toll at 220 in 2007. In the majority of cases, the victims are women, but Mr Yildiz's friends suspect he may be the first recorded victim of a homosexual honour killing. "We've been trying to contact Ahmet's family since Wednesday, to get them to take responsibility for the funeral," one of the victim's friends said yesterday, standing outside the morgue where his body has been for three days. "There's no answer, and I don't think they are going to come." The refusal of families to bury their relatives is common after honour-related murders.
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But according to the former neighbour, the physics student's blank refusal to hide who he was in any way may have been too much for his family. "He could have hidden who he was, but he wanted to live honestly," the neighbour said. "When the death threats started, his boyfriend tried to persuade him to get out of Turkey. But he stayed. He was too brave. He was too open."
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Stories like this one sicken me and reinforce my view that in many ways, religion (or at least some forms of it)is one of the greatest forces of evil on the planet.
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