This post is also available in: Français (French)
By Övgü Pınar
A Google research with the terms “femicide” and “unjust provocation” brings out results almost exclusively from Turkey. Unjust/unfair provocation is a legal term frequently applied in femicide cases in Turkey, to reduce the penalty of the perpetrator. The laws allow the judges to make a discount on the penalty if they deem the killer was in some -vague and unprovable- way provoked, suggesting that the murdered woman to some extent had deserved to be killed.
“Unjust provocation” discounts are usually given in cases where there’s an allegation of infidelity or “insult on manhood”: Men who murdered their wives or girlfriends can easily claim that they acted in uncontainable anger as they had found out the women’s infidelity, and get a reduced sentence. Murdered women are thus doubly victimized as their private lives, truthfully or not, are scrutinized and turned into the subject of judgement.
Reducing penalties on basis of an unjust provocation implies that it is the actions of the victim that cause the crime, thus blaming the victim and justifying the perpetrator.
One of the most recent cases of such discounts came on June 20, 2022.
Twenty-seven-year-old university student Pınar Gültekin was brutally murdered in 2020 by her ex-boyfriend Cemal Metin Avcı, who strangled her, put her body in a barrel, set it on fire and then buried it in cement. A forensic report found that she was still alive when the barrel was on fire.
Two years after the murder a Muğla court sentenced Avcı to aggravated life imprisonment, but then went on to reduce the sentence due to “unjust provocation”. The jail term was reduced to 23 years, jurists say that he may actually be released after 7 years.
Laws, their application and the political background make up an environment in which women are not-so-subtly told that if they don’t behave in line with the patriarchal codes they and their rights won’t be protected by the state, neither while still living nor after death.
In a separate case on June 22, the Court of Cassation ruled that a reduction applied on the jail term of a man convicted of killing his ex-wife was not high enough. Uğur Kurban was convicted of murdering his estranged wife Hafize Kurban in 2019, during the divorce process. He was sentenced to 24 years 4 months in jail in 2020, after a reduction for unjust provocation. However, Turkey’s highest court of appeal overturned the lower court’s sentence, stating that the reduction should have been greater due to the infidelity of the murdered woman.
Reduced terms in both cases were based on article 29 of Turkish Penal Code:
“Any person who commits an offense in a state of anger or severe distress caused by an unjust act shall be sentenced to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of 18 to 24 years where the offense committed requires a penalty of aggravated life imprisonment, and to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of 12 to 18 years where the offense committed requires a penalty of life imprisonment. Otherwise, the penalty to be imposed shall be reduced by one-quarter to three-quarters.”
The fact that courts frequently resort to the provision in femicide cases calls into question the law itself. Activists, lawyers call for an amendment to the article, along with other legal regulations, such as ‘good conduct’ deductions awarded sometimes even for a tie worn at the court by the perpetrator- used to reduce sentences in femicide cases,
Laws, their application and the political background make up an environment in which women are not-so-subtly told that if they don’t behave in line with the patriarchal codes they and their rights won’t be protected by the state, neither while still living nor after death. Men instead are told that they have a right to expect women to obey a presumed obligation of honor, and the state will protect that right, even in case they violate women’s right to life.