MorÇatı has warned the authorities when the law was being discussed at the Parliament. Mor Çatı asked the President to partially veto the law. With the law which is passed overnight, men who are sentenced for committing crimes against women like intentional injury, insult, threatening can be released. Moreover as postponement of sentence has become applicable for these crimes, men who use violance against women will not be sent to jailat the first place.
MorÇatı has warned the authorities when the law was being discussed at the Parliament. Mor Çatı asked the President to partially veto the law. With the law which is passed overnight, men who are sentenced for committing crimes against women like intentional injury, insult, threatening can be released. Moreover as postponement of sentence has become applicable for these crimes, men who use violance against women will not be sent to jailat the first place.
31 January 2013
Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation made a warning, sending the following letter to the President and media.
Mor Çatı called for the President’s partial veto on the Act No.6411
A new Act of Probation No. 6411 was admitted by The Grand National Assembly of Turkey and requires the President’s approval for the implementation. Once the law is published in the Official Gazzette, men who are curently imprisoned due to using violence against women can be released by immediate effect.
We all know that, the punishments for violence against women (injury, threat, and insult in particular) are very low. Consequently, the law will ensure the discharge of all men who has committed such crimes.
Therefore, women who are unaware of the recent news, thinking that their oppressors are in prison may confront them when they open their doors, workplaces and on the street. However, if the injury or the threat to murder brings about the murder of women, who will assume the responsibility for it?
Currently there are many women who believe that the men who used violence against them are kept in prison. There is ambiguity about what they will face when the law is fully applicable. Moreover if we consider that there are women who spend all their days at the police station due to special permissions granted to prisoners, it is not difficult to estimate negative outcomes that untimely and unannounced discharge of such men could bring about.
We know very well that when men who were sentenced for using domestic violance when awarded by home-leave turn up at their wives’ doors. Now, it poses much greater risk to discharge them.
As far as we insistently requested during the phase of making laws no. 4320 and 6284, it is essential to develop a special system of enforcement for crimes committed against women. It is required to take special measures such as not postponing declaration of court verdicts, not allowing redemptions, informing the victimized women beforehands if and when an early discharge or special permissions are granted.
Consequently, we are calling for the lawto be partially vetoed by the Presidency.
Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation
29 January 2013