Nursuna Memecan

AK Party’s Memecan: We must enable all to exist with their own diversity

Source: “AKP’li Memecan: Herkesin kendi farklılığı ile var olmasını sağlamalıyız” (“AK Party member Memecan: We must enable all to exist with their own diversity”) KAOS GL, 24 November 2014, http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=18039

Nursuna Memecan, of the ruling Justice and Development Party, and Binnaz Toprak, of the Republican People’s Party, attended a conference, organized by the European Parliament, concerning protecting LGBTI persons from discrimination on 20-21 November 2014. Speaking to kaosGL.org, Memecan made the following statements concerning the rights of disadvantaged groups:

Mesude-Nursuna-Memecan-Erhan
“It is necessary for everyone to be able to live with dignity”

“It is necessary for the rights of all disadvantaged groups to be granted. It is necessary for all to be able to live freely, without feeling pressure on themselves and to live with dignity. It is necessary that both the Roma people and the disabled can live with dignity, that no one look upon them with pity.”
“We may love someone or we may not, but we are obligated to have respect”

“This applies likewise to LGBT persons as well. Not out of pity; we need to perceive that there is an equal human being in front of us. For this reason, we need to learn respect for one another. Whether to love or even not to love someone is not important; you know how people always say, ‘Let us all love another’; this is not at all necessary; we need to have respect. We may love someone or we may not, but we are obligated to have respect.”

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Milli Gazete’s Sodom and Gomorrah analogy
Milli Gazete Cover Page, 25 November 2014. Annotated.

Milli Gazete Cover Page, 25 November 2014. Part 1. Annotated. Click for full size.

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Milli Gazete: Invitation to morality!

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Conservative paper attacked Turkish MPs who attended LGBTI conference

Conservative newspaper Milli Gazete attacked the Turkish MPs who attended a conference on fundamental rights held in Tirana by the European Parliament.

Source: Ömer Akpınar, “Conservative paper attacked Turkish MPs who attended LGBTI conference,” kaosGL.org, 25 November 2014, http://kaosgl.org/page.php?id=18051

Members of Parliament Nursuna Memecan from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Binnaz Toprak from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) were in the Albanian capital on November 20-21, 2014 to participate in the conference titled “Fundamental Rights, Non-Discrimination and the Protection of Vulnerable Groups, Including LGBTI”.

Turkish LGBTI activists together with Nursuna Memecan and Binnaz Toprak

Homophobic coverage caused three MPs to withdraw participation

Following Milli Gazete reporting on the event as “Parliament gives pass for immorality” three MPs, Mehmet Metiner and Ziver Ozdemir from the AKP and Ruhsar Demirel from the nationalist MHP, withdrew their participation.

Milli Gazete today reported on the conference full page with a title “Call to Morality”, calling Islamic groups to speak up against the LGBTI “disgrace”.

The paper wrote that the AKP MP “boarded the same plane secretly” to attend the “conference of perversion” and that the CHP MP’s criticism of the paper’s coverage is a “medal of honor”.

AKP MP: LGBTI people should be acknowledged their rights

Both MPs talked with Kaos GL Association’s lawyer Hayriye Kara, who also participated in the event, and commented on LGBTI rights.

Nursuna Memecan from the AKP said “LGBTI people’s rights should be acknowledged and they should live in dignity”, celebrating the work of civil society in Turkey on LGBTI rights.

Binnaz Toprak from the CHP criticized the government for not complying with international conventions it signed and added: “We should fight for everyone facing discrimination.”