AKP's Baykan tells woman who called him late at night: 'People like you should be put to sleep'

Explaining that his phone was called from a hidden number at 01:30 on Saturday night, Baykan recounted that a woman called him and he said, "'Look, ma'am, I am on duty regarding the law in the committee on the putting to sleep of stray animals. Work is being done on this, but I see that if you are calling me at one-thirty in the morning, we will need to find a solution regarding putting people like you to sleep,' I said." Other MPs reacted to Baykan.

According to the report by Duvar, the anecdote shared by AKP's Baykan during the committee discussions on the bill, which proposes amendments to the Animal Protection Law and paves the way for "euthanasia" for stray animals, drew backlash.

Explaining that his phone was called from a hidden number at 01:30 on Saturday night, Baykan stated that a woman asked him, "Which party are you from?" Baykan said, "I asked, 'Why are you asking?' and while she was talking about 'the putting to sleep of stray animals' and so on, I said, 'Look, ma'am, I am on duty regarding the law in the committee on the putting to sleep of stray animals. Work is being done on this, but I see that if you are calling me at one-thirty in the morning, we will need to find a solution regarding putting people like you to sleep.'"

DEM Party Istanbul MP Çiçek Otlu reacted to Baykan, saying, "There, we are already coming to this. What happened to 'human first'?"

Baykan claimed he was misunderstood, saying, "Ma'am, I am talking about sleeping. I said that if you cannot sleep at one-thirty in the morning, a solution needs to be found for you."

DEM Party's Koca: Have we moved from putting animals to sleep to putting women to sleep now?

CHP Kahramanmaraş MP Ali Öztunç also lashed out, saying, "You are in a very dangerous place, you said something very wrong, very."

DEM Party Mersin MP Perihan Koca asked, "Have we moved from the killing and putting to sleep of animals to the putting to sleep of women now?"

The conversation that took place in the committee was as follows:

ALİ ÖZTUNÇ: A headline has emerged; they want to put women to sleep too.

MEHMET BAYKAN: Look, look, there... Ma'am, let her sleep, let her sleep; if she is losing sleep, sleep can be induced, she can go to a psychologist, she can go to a psychiatrist.

ÇİÇEK OTLU: Oh, my dear friend...

MEHMET BAYKAN: Now look, I have...

CHAIRMAN VAHİT KİRİŞCİ: Friends...

MEHMET BAYKAN: I have the minutes of the assembly in my hand. Mr. Chairman...

CHAIRMAN VAHİT KİRİŞCİ: Friends, let us listen to the speaker.

MEHMET BAYKAN: Mr. Chairman...

(Noise)

CHAIRMAN VAHİT KİRİŞCİ: Go ahead.

MEHMET BAYKAN: You are exploiting everything, you are exploiting everything. I am telling you something humorous, you are exploiting everything, just like in these minutes. In the session before the afternoon, we were talking about stray animals here, we were talking about whatever is causing problems in the law, but your speaker, Ms. Çiçek...

ÇİÇEK OTLU: I am reading The Handmaid's Tale again. In the 70s... A story of fascism...

MEHMET BAYKAN: Your speaker, Ms. Çiçek, keeps bringing it up because you are after rent-seeking, because she says, 'The thing you love most seems to be a dead Kurd,' what does that have to do with anything?

ÇİÇEK OTLU: Yes.

MEHMET BAYKAN: What are we talking about? What are we evaluating?