|
Turks Change Laws In Serious Effort to Suppress Honor Killings
.... a 15-year-old ... was raped by a visiting relative and impregnated. .... her 16-year-old brother ... slashed her with a meat cleaver around the head and shoulders and pounded her with rocks. .... .... brothers Ferit and Irfan Toren were arrested and charged with shooting their 22-year-old sister, Guldunya, twice in the head, killing her, as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from an earlier attack by the same brothers. .... .... Mehmet Halitogullari confessed to strangling his 14-year-old daughter, Nuran, with a wire, after she had been kidnapped on her way home and sexually assaulted for six days. .... Such killings are also getting unprecedented public attention in Turkey. The news media report each new case, and doctorsâ organizations, bar associations, womenâs groups, law professors and several prominent artists are campaigning for a crackdown on the crime. A year ago, the Turkish national assembly abolished a law that allowed light sentences in honour killings, raising the maximum to 24 years in prison. But activist groups, citing legal loopholes, continue to push for comprehensive reform of Turkish penal code provisions that favour men over women. Such reform is now well underway. Draft amendments to the code are before the justice subcommittee of the national assembly and said to be only weeks away from becoming law. The action reflects an apparent willingness to end official complicity in the killings through laws that allow the perpetrators â who are always male â to get off lightly. .... Four years ago, a sustained campaign by Women For Womenâs Rights led to the overhaul of Turkeyâs civil code. .... Partly as a result of the process, the government last year abolished Article 462, which had given judges discretion to reduce a murder sentence in honour killings by as much as 80 per cent. But other articles still allow such killers to get off lightly, Bilgutay says. "The âunjust provocationâ article is one. It says that if you suddenly do something bad to me and I react with rage and kill you, I get a reduced sentence because you were unjustly provoking me. In honour killings, men are getting reduced sentences by arguing, `I saw my daughter with a boy in front of the cinema, so I was really shocked and provoked, and I killed her.â In fact, most honour killings are premeditated." .... Aysegul Kaya, an Istanbul lawyer active in womenâs rights issues, takes hope from what she sees as a landmark judgment set on March 9 in the southeast city of Sanliurfa ... The victim in the case was Emine Kizilkurt, 14. After she was raped and impregnated by a villager, a family council of men resolved to kill her. A 20-year-old cousin, Mahmut Kizilkurt, strangled her to death with a scarf. At trial, judge Orhan Akartuna handed Kizilkurt an aggravated life sentence, the stiffest penalty possible. For their complicity, the judge also sentenced the father, an uncle and six cousins to jail terms ranging from eight months to 16 years. "This is a first in Turkey," says Kaya. "There will be an appeal, but a judge has ruled that the family council was responsible, not just the killer." The sentences totalled 133 years and eight months. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-05-17 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=33195 |