The danger of “incels” and of the radicalisation of young men in the online space was highlighted by Turkish Cypriot opposition party CTP representative Dogus Derya, as she gave a speech about the future of the internet.

She explained that the term “Incel” is a portmanteau of the words “involuntary celibate”, and that it commonly refers to men, usually young men in the online space, who have been radicalised against women.

“Even though these people come from different countries, they have common points of reference. They can even come together on gaming platforms,” she said.

She added that “they can organise as an angry group of men because they feel rejected by women and see feminism, with the rights it provides to women, as something which eliminates the concept of the man as the ‘pillar of the house’”.

“The incel movement is a dark wave so extreme and devoid of conscience that it says that women should be confined to farms and used as breeding stock, and that they should be killed if they do not obey and fulfil traditional female roles,” she said.

She then went on to say that a number of murders which have been committed in Turkey are “being linked to incels”, with investigations into the murders of teenagers Aysenur Halil and Ikbal Uzuner in Istanbul in 2024 finding that their killer, Semih Celik, had been a part of online incel groups.

More recently, it has been reported that a school shooting which took place in the district of Onikisubat in the southeastern Turkish province of Kahramanmaras, which saw 10 killed and 12 injured, may have been incel-motivated in its nature

In light of this, Derya called on the Turkish Cypriot authorities to do more to support young people.

“When the welfare state withdraws its support from children and young people, a process of institutionalising hatred takes place. It is not easy to take measures regarding these issues in a place where even the right to accessible education cannot be established,” she said.

To this end, she warned against simply reinforcing security measures to ward against attacks, saying, “you cannot make schools safe by deploying municipal police, or even regular police, or building bigger walls”.

“The police and children’s families need to be informed. A new approach in which social service professionals will work in the education sector needs to be introduced,” she said.