JINHA

AMED – Nevin Yıldırım, who killed her rapist, has been sentenced to life in prison. In Turkey, where women's killers receive sentence reductions for being "provoked" by their victims, the case is drawing outrage.

Nevin Yıldırım allegedly killed the man who had raped her at gunpoint on August 29, 2012. She was quickly arrested in her village of Korukaya, in Isparta province. The prosecutor called for penal servitude for life. Her trial has been ongoing for two years and seven months. Now, the court has announced a sentence of life in prison.

Women from solidarity organizations across Turkey have been following the trial. Nevin has become a symbol of the principle of self-defense. The concept has gained steam in the women's movement recently, in the wake of women's engagement with YPJ self-defense fighters in Rojava and rage over the loss of ÖzgecanAslan, the university student killed in Mersin province.

Police attacked women at Nevin's court support recently, wounding three women from Istanbul and Antalya women's solidarity groups who attempted to enter the hearing, which had been declared a closed session. The prosecutor said that he had ordered the police attack, enraging women who say the state is cooperating with Nevin's prosecutor to condemn her.Women's solidarity groups from across the country, from Şırnak to Kocaeli, have demonstrated for Nevin.

"We won't let Nevin be this country's Reyhaneh," said a statement from the group New Democratic Woman that referred to the woman executed in Iran in 2014 for killing her rapist.

Rarely does a rapist, child molester or perpetrator of femicidestand before the court in Turkey without receiving a sentence reduction. 34-year-old KamilÇolak, who knifed his wife ÖzlemIşıkin eight places and ran over her with a car, received a reduction from a life sentence to 18 years because he had been "provoked"—by her request for a divorce."Provocation" is a common reason for sentence reduction, but judges have also issued sentence reductions for the culprit's wearing a tie to court.

Gülhan Kaya, a lawyer with the Law Bureau of the Oppressed, pointed out that although Turkey's law allows for sentence reductions for legitimate self-defense, judges and lawyers never discussed that option forNevin—let alone the reduction for "provocation," although the man Nevin killed had repeatedly raped her.

"But the attack we've seen here is a demonstration of how much those in power are scared of the concept of self-defense," said Gülhan.

(dk/fk/mg/cm)