A transgender woman murdered in Turkey

This is just a copy/paste of a news I just received through Lambdaistanbul (see here for the english version of their website), association. a turkish LGBTT association

Another transgender friend was murdered!

Press Release by KAOS GL – 11/11/2008

Baris Sulu – Ankara

Translated into English by Sedef Cakmak

Edited in English by Oner Ceylan

As we were getting ready for the “November 20th, Remembrance Day for Transgender victims of hate murders” we were devastated by a news we received. On November 10, 2008, around 9 pm in Etlik, a district of Ankara, our friend Dilek was attacked with a pump action shotgun, and passed away at the Ankara Diskapi Education and Research Hospital at around 0:30 am on November 11, 2008.

According to an eye-witness; while they were in the car with Dilek in the Etlik-Iskitler district, they were startled by a shot and the sound of a shattered window coming from the back of the car. A few minutes later, another fire was opened from the side of the car aiming Dilek’s head, who was sitting in the driver’s seat. When she was taken to a hospital where she was taken into intensive care. Eight shots were found in her head. This verifies that the assault might have been done with a shotgun. It was told that the assaulters ran away with a dark colored car and they were more than 2 people.

Dilek was one of the transsexuals who had filed complaints against the attackers in the Eryaman incidents. During the trial, she had also sat at the witness chair and testified against the assaulters. The suspects of the Eryaman incidents were released during the hearing on October 17, 2008.

Condolences to all of us…

And another press release, from LGBT Rights Platform, which was delivered during a protest, on the 12th of November :

Gay and transsexual murders are political – We now the killers!

LGBT Rights Platform
15/11/2008
26 kere okundu

On November 12, 2008, after the funeral service of Dilek, LGBT Rights Platform has delivered a press release followed by a protest march in Ankara. You may find the press release below.

LGBT Rights Platform – Press Release

12 November 2008, Ankara

We are in sorrow and anger.

We are in deep sadness, because one of our friends has been a victim of the heterosexist hate and murdered once again.

Transsexual Dilek İnce, who has been attacked with a shotgun on 10 November 2008, died on 11 November 2008.

We are in anger, because we came here from a cemetery. We are in great anger because we cannot know which gay or transsexual friend of ours is the next.

Who killed transsexual Dilek İnce in a shotgun attack? And will the murderers be found?

Who killed gay individual Ahmet Yıldız with a machine gun? And why could İstanbul Police Department not find the attackers?

Who forced Ege Tanyürek, a young gay person, to commit suicide in Adıyaman?

We are in fear and fright!

We would like to know if gay and transsexuals are not citizens according to Mr. Prime Minister?

Isn’t it a crime to discriminate citizens?

We want to know

If the police will find the murderers?

If prosecutors and judges will give up freeing the killers under grievous provocation.

We are in fear and freight because we do not know how many other gays and transsexuals will be killed by the Prime Minister’s citizens who “got out of patience.”

We want to know if Mr. Prime Minister will create a just and peaceful society by consternating and disquieting.

We will not change, you will get used to it!

We knocked your doors, we screamed, we wore shrouds, do you think we are playing a game?

We are being killed just because we are gay or transsexual. We are looking for justice and we cannot find it.

What we want is not too much; it is only not to be killed because of our sexual orientation and gender identities.

How long will you watch us being killed by empowering homophobic and transphobic hate?

Hitler sealed us with pink triangles and killed us in holocaust, but could not destroy us. You, the watchers! Do you think that you will be able to destroy gays and transsexuals through hunting one by one?

We announce it!

Gay and transsexual murders are political – We now the killers!

We will not let it go!

Shame on your morality soiled with gay and transsexual blood!

I see no comment to add to this sad news, but even if it isn’t directly linked, I think it is important to remind that the association Lambdaistanbul is facing dissolution and that the final appeal of the case will be held in Turkish supreme court on november 25th. A petition to protest the dissolution decision can be signed here. I don’t know much of the turkish situation but I think it is currently difficult for LGBT people and there was much violence directed to trans peole, so it would be really dramatical if the sentence was to be confirmed, shutting down an association defending LGBT people.

News on Angie Zapata’s murderer’s trial

So, we have what I think is quite a good news: a judge refused to remove the first degree murder accusation.

Charge stands against transgender-murder suspect

By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post

Article Launched: 09/18/2008 10:07:24 AM MDT

GREELEY — A judge today refused to lower a first-degree murder charge against a 31-year-old man accused of beating to death a transgender woman he had oral sex with the night before her death.

Weld District Judge Marcelo Kopcow cited evidence that Allen Andrade hit 18-year-old Angie Zapata several times with a fire extinguisher in her Greeley apartment in July after he confronted her about her sexual orientation.

Kopcow said he also considered several statements Andrade allegedly made while in custody that showed his anger toward Zapata and gays in general. In one conversation, he allegedly told his girlfriend that “all gay things need to die,” said Greeley Police Detective Greg Tharp.

Andrade also allegedly told his girlfriend that he was trying to put the murder behind him and that there was “no use crying over spilled milk.”

Kopcow made his ruling in a preliminary hearing for Andrade, who faces several charges, including first-degree murder and a felony bias-motivated crime.

Andrade’s lawyer, Annette Kundelius, argued that the murder charge should be reduced to second-degree murder because there was no deliberation in Andrade’s acts.

When Andrade confronted Zapata about her sexual leanings, Zapata told him she was “all woman” and smiled at him, Kundelius said. “This was a highly provoking act and would cause someone to have an aggressive action,” Kundelius said. “At best this is a case of passion.”

But Kopcow said Andrade could have left the apartment rather than attacking Zapata. “There was a period of time when reason and humanity could have been heard,” the judge said.

Kopcow also declined to set bail for Zapata, citing the capital nature of the crime. Another hearing in the case is set for November.

But well, on the other hand, the lawyer makes me really want to smash his head against a solid brick (or a solid brick against his head, I don’t care), in a case of passion, of course. Seriously:

When Andrade confronted Zapata about her sexual leanings, Zapata told him she was “all woman” and smiled at him, Kundelius said. “This was a highly provoking act and would cause someone to have an aggressive action,” Kundelius said. “At best this is a case of passion.”

Oh my god, she smiled. How provocative is that? No wonder he had to kill her, then…

Better late than never

This is not a very joyful post, since it is to talk about the brutal murder of two trans women which occured in the last month.

Angie Zapata was murdered the 17th of July in Greeley (USA); you can look at, e.g, the post on Questioning Transphobia for more information. There is also a roundup of posts on Angie Zapata. This a brutal example of transphobic murder, where the murderer dares to call his victim “it” after killing her.

Probably an information which circulated less on english blogs, Rosa Pazos was murdered the 11th of July in Sevilla (Spain). There were gatherings in some spanish cities on the 28th on july. Here is the tract which was signed by multiple organizations.

I read a spanish article on Rosa Pazos, which I found, given the way medias usually treat trans people, quite good, so, despite this is a copyright infringement, I’d like to post a home-made english translation. Since neither spanish nor english are my mother tongues, it is probably not very good, but I hope it is still readable.

The rights Rosa Pazos didn’t enjoy

There are people who without knowing it succeed in changing history. There are times where those people die without having received a minimal acknowledgement. This is the case of Rosa Pazos, the transsexual activist from Sevilla who was found dead in her housing, an event whose causes are under investigation. She was a transsexual woman, anarchist woman, suffering and dreaming, who, without knowing it, would help at the other transsexual people.

“In february of 1997 appeared a transsexual people who was called Rosa and was filing a complaint because the Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Andaluz Service of Health), SAS, was denying her medical assistance for feminization…” This is how starts an informal memo of 19 pages redacted by the attached of the Defensor del Pueblo Andaluz (DPA) [a Defensor del Pueblo is, if I understand well, an official who is in charge to defend citizens against abuses which can be commited by officials from a state], José Chamizo, in 1998, on the case on Rosa, in which was also reflected the reality of transsexuality, at a medical, social and judicial level. As a conclusion, it was recommended that the SAS would take the costs of the transsexualising treatment in charge.

And this was how one year later, the 11 of february of 1999, the Andaluz Parliament approved a decree making come true this dream, unreachable years before when, in an health center, Rosa was treated of “transvestite”. She transformed her rage and outrage into letters and writings to the Defensor. Far from falling into deaf ears, they were a key so that Andalucia became a pioneer in the domain.

But Rosa, who was 46 when she die,  did not only fight for rights affecting her as transsexual. Her comrades from the CNT [Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo - an anarchist trade union] remember that “she was the first to start making banners and to help in everything she could”. Despite her economical problems, since Rosa, as many other transsexual people, was fired after starting her transformation, she always helped the workers’ struggles. Her transsexuality moved her away from her family, according to people of her environment. She was living alone since the death of her mother.

Taunts and agressions

Her physical aspect, with 1.95 meter, red hair and quite marked masculine traits, made her not only the center of all looks, but also the target of taunts and agressions. Blanca, her best friend, explains that in the travel to Malaga so that Rosa submitted to tests in order to have the right to surgery, “two people mocked her and she collapsed”, few hours before some vital tests.

Rosa never obtained reasignement or name change. Her mental problems were an impassable barrier to obtain them. Her psychologist, José Luis Sanchez, was outraged. “Why can’t transsexual people have mental problems ?She always felt as a woman, with or without mental problems”, he said after the death of his patient.

Gatherings in nine cities

In the afternoon of this [28th of July] mondy they were gathering in nine spanish cities in memory of Rosa. In Sevilla the queer collective “Panteras Rosas” organized a gathering of tribute in the place of La Barzola, in Rosa’s neighborhood. The CNT, as other friends and comrades of Rosa, joined this action, which also reclaimed that her murder was clarified.