“No Sentence Can Bring My Child Back… And Now You’re Talking About a Reduction?”
If it were my child who had died…
If that knife had been plunged into my son’s heart in a marketplace…
And if you then turned to me and said, “The perpetrator was a minor, there will be a sentence reduction”…
But that child’s name was Ahmet. And his mother was Yasemin… A mother. A woman. A seeker of justice. She was not standing there only for herself—she was standing in the place of everyone who still has a conscience.
And now I ask:
Does the age of the perpetrator matter more—or the age of the life that was buried? In this country, laws written after the deaths of children have always come too late. Sentence reductions were granted for “good conduct,” for “wearing a tie.” And now—are we going to respond to a mother’s tears by saying, “the offender was young”?
This is no longer a legal issue. This is a moral test. And those who fail this test lose not only the law—but the future.
That mother did not remain silent. She is tired—not of crying, but of explaining. Yet she is still standing, still upright. Because her son Ahmet’s blood has not yet dried.
I am also a mother. Yes, perhaps my child did not die… But if this system does not change, we will all become complicit in the death of every child. That is why I am here. By Yasemin’s side. Before justice. Demanding that crime be measured not by age, but by consequence.