Dora

Not even one transsexual person that I know died of natural causes

“Violence Stories from Turkey” is a project by Intercultural Research Association that aims to archive and document the phenomenon of violence in Turkey; to prevent events of violence and their victims from “becoming ordinary” and “turning into statistics”; to investigate the conditions of violence in order to make future projections; and to bring together NGOs, civil society, and advocates for the defense of victims’ rights. The project publishes photographs and interviews with victims or witnesses in a simple and flexible format that allows the interviewees to express themselves.

Source: Cankız Çevik, “Tanıdığım transseksüellerden biri bile eceliyle ölmedi,” (“Not even one transsexual person that I know died of natural causes,”) Türkiye’den Şiddet Hikayeleri, 30 July 2013, http://www.siddethikayeleri.com/tanidigim-transseksuellerden-biri-bile-eceliyle-olmedi/

Trans woman and sex worker Dora Özer was stabbed to death at her home in Kuşadası on July 9, 2013. About 20 days later, another hate killing took place in İstanbul: a trans woman named Gaye was murdered also at her own home. Even after these series of deaths, hate crimes are still not on the government’s agenda. Demet Yanardağ from the Black Pink Triangle İzmir Association talked to “Violence Stories From Turkey” about Dora, about trans murders that are “ordinary” in the eyes of the media and the public, and about the justice system that absolves these murders by maintaining their silence.

I met Dora 6 or 7 years ago, when I first came to İzmir from Çanakkale. At that point the circumstances in İzmir were horrible because Hüseyin Çapkın was the commissioner. Hüseyin Çapkın was someone who believed that he was restoring order by oppressing people just like Hortum Süleyman who tormented people in Beyoğlu a while ago.

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