News & Comment
Advice against Late Marriage and Penalty for Young Marriage

News:

Speaking at a ceremony at the Beştepe Presidential Palace, President Erdogan stated that the marriage age of the youth is increasing. He said: “Most of our girls and boys get married after the age of 30, or they never do so. How can such a thing happen? We must resist to this danger all together” and advised to marry. (Agencies)

Comment:

There is a laconism in our language that summarizes this attitude of the President: “When the Copt boasts with his heroism, he speaks about his thievery”. It seems that the President, who is trying to play a hero with this advice, is not aware of what kind of mischief he has caused with the agreements and laws he has accepted.

It is rather meaningful that you blame the young people for their late marriage, since it was you during your ruling of 18 years who enacted the laws and accepted the agreements, which alienated the young people from marriage, incited family breakups, caused the exponential growth of the number of divorces year by year, while introducing the incredible punishments for men who get married to women under the age of 18. The Istanbul Convention, set up upon the European Council’s decision, and known among the public as the project to break down the family, was accepted during your rulership, in 2011. It is a great paradox that you are talking about the necessity of early marriage, while each year about 150 thousand men are suspended from their homes due to the implementation of this agreement.

This agreement alone caused the breakdown of over 1 million families. Is it possible to maintain strong families, while the number of femicides is increasing exponentially due to this agreement which is supposed to prevent violence against women? Not taking any steps against deviant and rabid crowds that appear at every corner of the country under the nonsense of gender equality based on this contract is trampling on a sacred value like marriage. Another form of oppression is to take the woman’s statement as evidence alone in a conflict between husband and wife, which opens the doors wide to instigation.

You have closed the marriage door completely with the permanent alimony penalty. Complaining about late marriage is messing with the mind of people because you were the ones who committed this crime by putting thousands of young people who married at the age of 16-17 to prison, leaving their wives without husbands and their children without their fathers. Although you are in the control of the media that spreads all kinds of immorality, what kind of leadership principle does it match that you are trying to acquit yourself by just only talking about the immorality of these broadcasts and how they harm the family?

The West destroyed the family as it sacrificed its family institution to its economy. And now it is facing extinction. However, it is strange that while the immoral western laws are being implemented among the Ummah as a solution, taking them as an example is waging war against the truth. While President Erdogan is speaking as if he was not the leader of Turkey but of another country, his actions are disproving his sayings. While the laws you enacted and the agreements you accepted are breaking up the families by maligning them, your marriage-related advice does not make sense. The status of an executive authority is not that of complaints. If you have forgotten this principle, let’s remind you again.

Two years have passed since your confession that decriminalizing adultery according the EU’s statement was a mistake. 8 months have passed since your statement that the Istanbul Convention is not an Islamic provision. However, the laws in implementation are continuing to break up the families although your words flew away long ago. If you are really sincere in your sayings, first leave the rancid western system, terminate the instigation agreements which have western tendency, and release the youth, who married according the order of Allah, from prison.

Discipline the media, which disregards family, human honour and dignity. Abstain from the effort to push women into labour market. Apply the Social System of Islam in order to encourage the establishment of families based on the fear of Allah. Then, you can overpower your enemies with a strong family, a strong system and a strong state. If you are ready for it, the society is more than willing to this.

We know that not one single human value is safe under the capitalist system, thus the most private value, the family, is not safe too. The System of Islam, which will ensure this safety, will be the solution of all problems today and tomorrow as it was yesterday.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Ahmet SAPA