[sacw] [ACT] NYT:Turkish Terror Victim Espoused a Tolerant Islam

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI
Harsh Kapoor
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New York Times
January 26, 2000
International

Turkish Terror Victim Espoused a Tolerant Islam

By STEPHEN KINZER

STANBUL, Jan. 25 -- With Turkey in shock over the discovery of dozens of
savagely tortured bodies beneath the hide-outs of a religious terror
group, much of the outrage and grief has been focused on the case of the
only female victim.
The woman, Konca Kuris, was often described as a Muslim feminist. In
books, articles, lectures and television appearances, she had described
Islam as a religion that guarantees women's rights, and asserted that
male commentators over the centuries had twisted its essence in ways
that led to the oppression of women.

In July 1998, Ms. Kuris was kidnapped from the street in front of her
home in the Mediterranean city of Mersin. There were no clues to her
fate until her burned and disfigured body was exhumed on Saturday from a
shallow grave in Konya, 220 miles northwest of Mersin.

Her body was one of 33 that have been found so far at properties used by
Hizbullah, or the Party of God, a group dedicated to overthrowing the
secular Turkish state and establishing an Islamic republic in its place.
Police investigators are searching for more bodies.

Hizbullah is not believed to be connected to the similarly named group
that has fought against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Both
groups, however, proclaim loyalty to a fundamentalist interpretation of
Islam.

According to press reports, the police team that uncovered Ms. Kuris's
body also found a videotape containing scenes of torture sessions she
endured over a period of weeks. During one of the sessions, her captors
are said to have accused her of seeking to become Turkey's version of
Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasrin, writers whom some Muslims consider
heretics deserving of death.

"She had a great influence on Turkish women," said Ayse Onal, who has
written several books on feminism in Turkey. "She showed that it's
possible to be completely modern and still be faithful to Islam. That's
why she was killed. Hizbullah, which is a very sick and deeply violent
group, could not tolerate her point of view."

Ms. Kuris was the only intellectual among the Hizbullah victims found so
far. Most of the others are believed to have been Kurdish businessmen
from war-torn provinces in the southeast.

After the first bodies were found last week, several politicians, news
commentators and others charged that the Turkish military had
collaborated with Hizbullah in the early 1990's, encouraging its death
squads to kill Kurds considered favorable to the cause of Kurdish
nationalism.

President Suleyman Demirel rejected that charge, but appeared to agree
that some government agents or agencies might have had connections to
Hizbullah.

"The state does not commit murders or order murders to be carried out,"
Mr. Demirel told reporters in Ankara on Sunday.

"There may be forces belonging to the state that act illegitimately, but
they are committing a crime."

Military commanders issued a statement denying that they or their
predecessors had sponsored or aided Hizbullah.

"The general staff is closely following operations against the Hizbullah
terror organization and shares the public's justified outrage at the
horrors that have recently been uncovered," the commanders said.
"Directly linking this merciless murder network to the Turkish armed
forces is a senseless and illogical slander."

Turkey is arguably the world's most secular Muslim country, and many
people here, especially women, considered Ms. Kuris an exemplar of their
tolerant brand of Islam.

Born in 1960, she was married at 17 and had five children.

At a young age she became interested in Islam, but quit the first
religious sect she joined after being asked to wash its leaders'
clothes. Later she made a trip to Iran with a Hizbullah delegation, but
returned disillusioned with the organization because, she said, it
supported a brand of Islam that was hostile to women.

After reading the Koran and various works of commentary, she began
challenging religious orthodoxy, asserting that Islam does not require
women to cover their hair with scarves and does not require the
separation of the sexes at funerals or in schools.

She also urged that public prayers be offered in Turkish rather than the
traditional Arabic.

"Konca used her mind, her emotions and her conscience to interpret God's
message," said Gonul Tufekci, a lawyer who is prominent in Islamic
feminist circles here.

"This approach challenges the ideology that tries to use Islam as a tool
to keep women down. It is based on the concept of an open mind. This
concept is repugnant not only to groups like Hizbullah, but to many
institutions in this part of the world."

Related Article
* Mass Graves in Turkey Put Attention on Terror Cell (Jan. 23, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/012300turkey-graves.html
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