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"First of all, I want my rights as a Muslim woman. I am very complaining about the mistakes in today's Quran translations and see them as a distortion of religion. Since the Quran has always been translated by a male-dominated society, I deeply regret that they have made very harsh translations of the provisions regarding women."
― Konca Kuriş
Konca Kuriş (October 16, 1961 - (?) 1999) was a Turkish secular Muslim feminist activist and writer who was abducted and tortured to death by the Kurdish Hezbollah.
Biography[]
Konca was born in Mersin on October 16, 1961 to unknown parents. She married Orhan Kuriş at the age of 16. She had five children with this marriage. Influenced by Orhan's family, she became religious and first listened to them in order to understand the religion, and then began to question it herself.
In 1987, she met the Naqshbandi sect, to which her father-in-law belonged. Apart from the Naqshbandi Order, she was in contact with many communities and non-governmental organizations such as the Nur Community, Süleyman Efendi Community, and Jehovah's Witnesses, for the purpose of preaching, and actively took part in discussions. Contrary to some claims, she was never a member of Hezbollah.
According to Keskin Kozat, Kuriş began to distance herself from Naqshbandi sect due to differences of opinion regarding the leader's control over the group and subordination to men. She and her aunt Necla Genç worked at the Independent Women's Association in Mersin. Her views on the role of women in Islam, as well as the struggle for women's rights in the economic and social spheres, gradually created a mass of people around her, with the television programs she appeared on.
Kuriş later published articles in feminist İktibaş Magazine, published by writer Ercüment Özkan. She became interested in the discussions around İktibaş about understanding the Quran. According to Keskin Kozat's article, Kuriş left the group after Özkan's death because she found the views of İktibaş' new leadership team "too feminist".
She believed that Islam should be reinterpreted with the wisdom of the age. She was covered, but she argued that there was no obligation to wear a headscarf in the Quran. She criticized marriages with multiple wives. She said that men and women could pray side by side. She attended a conference on women in Iran. After returning from Iran, she began to express her disagreement with Hezbollah's views. Her father-in-law, Abdullah Kuriş, had warned her about Hezbollah. Because of these statements, she started to receive threats and became the target of Hezbollah.
Death[]
Kuriş was kidnapped by the Kurdish Hezbollah on July 16, 1998. Konca and Orhan Kuriş, who got out of the minibus, were shot by three armed militants who came out of their hiding place as they were about to open the door of their house. After taking the keys of the minibus from Orhan Kuriş, whom they laid on the ground, the militants put Konca Kuriş into the minibus and quickly fled the scene.
She was tortured by Hezbollah members for 35 days and then killed and buried in the basement of the house where she was interrogated. Torture sessions were recorded by her killers. Sadettin Tantan, then Minister of Internal Affairs, showed these images to a group of journalists at that time. Her body was found during operations carried out on Hezbollah houses on January 23, 2000, 555 days after her abduction. According to the preliminary autopsy report, it was found that Kuriş was killed 8-10 months ago.
After the murders of Konca Kuriş and Gaffar Okkan, the state weakened the organization with its operations against Hezbollah. Today, Konca Kuriş is at the Mersin City Cemetery with singer Bergen and Özgecan Aslan, who are symbolic names of the fight against violence against women and women's rights in Turkey.