JINHA

AMED – The policy called "sentence reduction for unjust incitement" in Turkish law makes it possible for men to go unpunished for killing women, says lawyer RahşanBataray. The law requires that women provide proof or a report made at the moment of the incidence of violence to accept that violence has occurred. But for men to receive a sentence reduction under the "unjust incitement" policy, they need only state to the court that a woman cheated on them, without proof required.

In Turkey, where the rape and burning to death of ÖzgecanAslan has put violence against women on the agenda, in just the last week, five men who murdered women have received good behavior sentence reductions for "behaving respectfully," "having a poor position in society" or being "incited" to violence.

Most recently, AdemÇıracı, who both poisoned and strangled to death KezbanDoğan in Ankara, had his life sentence reduced to 25 years for behaving respectfully in court.

"Most killers of women should have a heavy life sentence. Most of these crimes are premeditated and committed with ill will," said Rahşan. "But you see judges applying all the possible sentence reduction factors in these cases, because the killer and the judicial system have the same mindset."

Rahşan says the factors used as evidence of "unjust incitement" in these cases include normal daily activities for a woman and normal emotions, as well as requests for divorce. The simple statement that a woman cheated on a man (without any proof) is also accepted as evidence of unjust incitement. After receiving a number of such reductions, men are often given amnesty entirely, says Rahşan.

When it comes to women, in contrast,extensive hurdles are in place. Regarding requests for divorce based on partner violence, Rahşan asks, "Why are these accepted as criteria for divorce in court, but no public case is opened against the men in these cases? If a judge sees evidence of violence in a divorce case, he or she needs to treat this as a criminal complaint and submit it to the public prosecutor.

"Unfortunately this violence has been so normalized that women have to collect a range of concrete evidence to even begin any kind of complaint about this." For this reason, Rahşan says, women rarely seek justice for violence from their partners.

"There doesn't need to be a change in the laws, but in this logic," says Rahşan. "Every judge and prosecutor needs to be educated on women's cases in law school."

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