Sentence Reduction Due to ‘Provocation’ in Male Violence Cases on Parliamentary Agenda

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Siirt MP Meral Danış Beştaş has submitted a written parliamentary question regarding the 'provocation' being considered a mitigating factor in cases of male violence and the resulting sentence reductions made by the courts.

In her parliamentary question, Danış-Beştaş has directed a series of questions to Minister of Justice Abdülhamit Gül and requested that he respond to the questions in written form.

Danış Beştaş has asked Gül the following questions:

• Considering that male violence has become a particularly serious issue and one woman loses her life due to male violence almost every day, do you think that male violence is legitimized by the courts which regard provocation as a mitigating factor in cases of male violence?
• Do you think that the verdicts given by courts in favor of men lead to an increase in incidents of violence against women?
• In what percentage of the cases regarding incidents of violence involving the death of a woman have the courts made a reduction in the sentence of the offender due to provocation? How can incidents regarded as unjust provocation by the courts be categorized?
• What is expressed by the fact that the verdicts given by courts ignore the unjust suffering of women and stand on a side that directly find women unjust?

Reversal by Supreme Court didn't change sentence

Danış Beştaş has brought the sentence reductions due to provocation into parliamentary agenda after an incident of male violence in İzmit:

On May 26, 2015, a man named M.G. shot his 19-year-old wife N.G. to death in İzmit. In the lawsuit which was filed after the incident, M.G. was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. However, on the ground that N.G. slapped her husband in the face during the quarrel, the court board regarded it as a mitigating factor and reduced the sentence to 20 years.

Though the Supreme Court of Appeals reversed this verdict on the ground that the Ministry of Family and Social Policies did not get involved in the lawsuit and the case was heard again, the prison sentence of 20 years previously given to the husband did not change.

According to the male violence monitoring report of bianet, the life sentence given to a male defendant was reduced to 18 years in December 2018 "because there was provocation." (EMK/SD)