The oddly phrased message popped into my inbox on a Sunday afternoon in late July. It read more like a chain mail text than a note from my friend in Istanbul with whom I usually chat with in a mixture of Turkish and English.
“I was careful to choose who I think will meet the challenge, but above all I know who shares this type of thinking,” the message said. “We are beautiful the way we are. Post a photo in black and white alone, written ‘challenge accepted’ and mention my name . . . ”
Her message was an invitation to join #challengeaccepted campaign on Instagram, the same one that many women I follow had already posted. Each smiled confidently at their smartphone cameras, unmasked, ready to be seen. Then they passed it on.
Broadly speaking, these #challengeaccepted selfies are about a surface-level version of “women’s empowerment” — essentially an Instagram beauty contest. But in the current Turkish context, this iteration often includes #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır, a hashtag calling for enforcement of the Istanbul Convention, a human rights treaty aimed at fighting violence against women. Forty-five countries, mainly in Europe, signed the convention. Turkey was the first country to ratify the treaty, but is now considering taking legal steps to exit it.
Instagram confirmed to Hyperallergic that the hashtag #istanbulsözleşmesiyaşatır started being used frequently the week of July 20, followed by frequent use of #challengeaccepted the next week. (According to the New York Times, #challengeaccepted has been around since 2016.)
Both hashtags spread quickly in Turkey after the murder of 27-year-old Kurdish-Turkish university student Pınar Gültekin by her ex-boyfriend Cemal Metin Avci. Gültekin was reported missing on July 16; five days later Avci confessed to torturing and murdering her, and led police to her body. Avci was arrested on charges of “killing with monstrous feeling.” According to Turkish media outlet Hürriyet, he has been transferred to a high-security prison in the central Anatolian province of Afyonkarahisar where he is in solitary confinement.
read the full story on Hyperallergic: https://hyperallergic.com/581546/turkish-women-respond-to-challenge-accepted/
