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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Turks Change Laws In Serious Effort to Suppress Honor Killings |
| 2004-05-17 |
| .... 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 doctors’ organizations, bar associations, women’s 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 — who are always male — to get off lightly. .... Four years ago, a sustained campaign by Women For Women’s Rights led to the overhaul of Turkey’s 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 ’unjust provocation’ 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.’ In fact, most honour killings are premeditated." .... Aysegul Kaya, an Istanbul lawyer active in women’s 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 |
| #6 As an American, I am unable to condone such mass retaliation. However, since such measures are often not at all looked down upon in the Middle East, I'm at a loss to explain why this much more effective solution has not been put in place. Well...this American is more than willing to not only condone, but implement said measures. Women are not viewed as Humans in these "so-called" cultures. Only men are seen as having value, so, if you want to alter their reality without taking generations, you're going to have to get brutal. I can only assume that keeping women "in their place" is of far greater importance than stopping their routine and senseless slaughter, maiming, disfigurement, assault ... ad nauseum This, is the crux of the biscuit! -AR |
| Posted by: Analog Roam 2004-05-17 6:25:35 PM |
| #5 I have a better idea. When an I think that the As an American, I am unable to condone such mass retaliation. However, since such measures are often not at all looked down upon in the Middle East, I'm at a loss to explain why this much more effective solution has not been put in place. I can only assume that keeping women "in their place" is of far greater importance than stopping their routine and senseless slaughter, maiming, disfigurement, assault ... ad nauseum . |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-17 1:17:01 PM |
| #4 I have a better idea. When an " I think that the " -AR |
| Posted by: Analog Roam 2004-05-17 9:32:33 AM |
| #3 Murat, do you spend any time and energy contributing to this fight against honor killings in your country? |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-05-17 7:56:24 AM |
| #2 Geeze Murat, your country only got around last year to raising the sentence for honor killings to a "maximum" of 24 years? That's a pretty poor showing. |
| Posted by: RMcLeod 2004-05-17 5:46:36 AM |
| #1 Let's do the math: 99.99% of the offenses that incite these Due to tragic and catastrophically irreversible side effects like broken hymens or unwanted pregnancies these women are then murdered so that they cannot serve as a lasting reminder of the affront done to them or their Direly Offended™ families by such criminal men. 99.99% of these Why the f**k is it that these Direly Offended™ male relatives cannot bring themselves to go out and cut the ba||s off the b@stard who dishonored their family in the first place? Oh ... please pardon my naivety. Doing that would take substantially more courage, moral fiber and ostiones than slaying a helpless rape victim in the confines of her own home or hospital bed. Worse yet, it might shed a glimmer of undesired light upon the inbred and entrenched culture of male privilege that has spawned this farcical miscarriage of justice in the first place. Perish the thought! "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." - LOUIS BRANDEIS - |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-17 2:01:07 AM |