NEWS CENTER – We Want to Live Together Initiative protested the murder of 17-year-old Gabonese university student Dina and 9-year-old Syrian Gina in front of Kadıköy Süreyya Opera. In the action where banners and banners were carried with the words “We want justice from Gabonese Dina to Syrian Gina”, it was emphasized that the murders of immigrants were not isolated but political.
Gülyeter Aktepe read the statement on behalf of the We Want to Live Together Initiative. 17-year-old Gabonese university student Jeannah Danys Dinabongho started her speech by reminding that Ibouanga (Dina) was found dead in Karabük Filyos Stream on 26 March. Although Aktepe made a press statement that Dina drowned right after the murder, the harassment messages sent by the post office employees, the video footage showing Dina running barefoot and the bruises on her body showed that this statement did not reflect the truth.
Explaining that Dina went to the post office to send a phone call to Gabon on March 20, Aktepe said, “Dina went to the post office again on March 24 after the message she received that the shipment was not delivered. An officer working at the post office asked for her phone number, saying she could help. Later, Dina started to receive harassment and threats from these people, which included offers of sexual intercourse for money,” he said.
Reminding that Dina had been exposed to racism in the messages she sent to her mother the day before she died, she was afraid that she might be killed, and that she wanted to move to Sakarya, Aktepe said, “It is unacceptable that the employees of the PTT, which is a state institution, harass and threaten a migrant woman who comes to the post office. The fact that a confidentiality decision was taken immediately after the incident, the reporter who published the video footage was taken into custody, the person who was seen getting into Dina’s car was detained 3 times and then released, and that he was arrested only today after being detained for the 4th time shows that the investigation was not conducted effectively and transparently.
Stating that 9-year-old Syrian girl Gina Mercimek was abused and killed in Kilis within the same week, Aktepe said: “These murders are not isolated. Ugandan Jesca Nankabirwa, who was murdered by being thrown out of a window after being raped in Istanbul in 2014, Syrian Emani El Rahmun, who was killed after being raped again in Sakarya in 2017, Uzbekistani who died in Ankara in 2019 at the house of AKP deputy Şirin Ünal The death of Nadira Kadirova and, most recently, Gabonese Jeannah Danys Dinabongho Ibouanga, in Karabuk reveals the systematic male violence against migrant women. On the other hand, it is not a coincidence that immigrant deaths and murders of immigrant women are covered without effective investigation and justice is not established.”
Emphasizing that murders of women and murders of immigrants are political, Aktepe said, “Instead of producing policies to end racism; fuels inequality, discrimination and sexism. We, all kinds of discrimination and exploitation of immigrants; We reiterate that we will stand against male violence against migrant women, and demand that migrant deaths be effectively investigated and clarified. We demand justice from Gabonese Dina to Syrian Gina!”
