Wedding photographer beats up groom for marrying child bride in Turkey

Photographer Onur Albayrak in a photo from his Facebook page.PHOTO: FACEBOOK.

MALATYA, (Turkey) (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): A wedding photographer has been declared a hero on social media after admitting that he beat up a man who was getting married to a 15-year-old girl.

Onur Albayrak - a photographer in the eastern Turkish province of Malatya - saw red when he found out the girl's age, reported the Hurriyet Daily News.

Albayrak admitted the act on his Facebook account on July 7, adding that he did not regret his actions.
“Yes, the reports are correct. A child bride means child abuse, and no force in the world can make me photograph a child as a bride,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.

According to reports, Albayrak was hired to photograph the wedding at Malatya’s Turgut Ozal Nature Park on July 5.

When he noticed that the bride-to-be did not look like an adult, Albayrak reportedly asked the groom about her age.

The photographer reacted angrily when the groom answered that the bride was only 15 years old.

The two men soon started fighting, and the groom’s nose was broken in the quarrel, the Hurriyet reported.

“The groom had come to my studio some two weeks ago and was alone. I saw the bride for the first time at the wedding. She’s a child, and I felt her fear because she was trembling. The groom attacked me as I was leaving,” Albayrak said, noting that he is “happy to manifest his reaction”.

The issue of child marriage is pressing in Turkey, with rights groups warning against the drastic numbers of child marriage.

According to Turkish law, the minimum age to marry for both men and women is 18. Only in exceptional situations a judge order is required to marry off 17 year olds. It is not legal to marry younger in any condition in Turkey. - The Straits Times/Asia News Network