THE co-chair of Turkey’s Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) called on the government today to take action to stem a rising tide of femicide, accusing the authorities of being “responsible for the massacres of women.” Pervin Buldan was speaking at a meeting of the party’s parliamentary women’s group a day after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had dismissed the number of murders of women in Turkey as insignificant, claiming that “three times as many men are killed.” “The duty of the government is not to issue condemnation, it is to prevent these murders and to ensure the heaviest punishment of the perpetrators,” she told those gathered, who included members of the Rosa Women’s Association and Revolutionary Party leader Elif Torun.