Dad strangles raped girl for family's honour
I didn't realize that this was happening in Turkey. I forget that Turkey is mostly in Asia and seems to be something that happens regularly in Asia/Africa. Craziness.
Dad strangles raped girl for family's honour
April 29 2004 at 06:33PM
By Suzan Fraser
Ankara - Ignoring the pleas of his 14-year-old daughter to spare her life, Mehmet Halitogullari pulls on a wire wrapped around her neck and strangles her - supposedly to restore the family's honour after she was kidnapped and raped.
Nuran Halitogullari, buried on Thursday in a ceremony attended by women's rights advocates, is the latest victim of a long history of "honour killing", which the government is struggling to curb.
Each year, dozens of girls are killed in Turkey by relatives for allegedly disgracing their families, some for merely being seen speaking to men. The practice is especially common in Turkey's more traditional south-east, and among families who have migrated to big cities from the region.
'No reductions should be made'
The killings also occur in Pakistan and some countries of the Middle East, where virginity and chastity are cherished, and among immigrant families in European Union countries like Britain and Sweden.
The EU, which Turkey aspires to join, is pressing the country to take steps to curb the practice it says is a violation of women's rights.
Parliament last year voted to raise the punishment for such crimes, which could bring as many as 24 years in prison. But a loophole in the laws allows relatives to escape with reduced sentences as light as eight years if they can prove they were "provoked" into committing the crime.
European countries want Turkey to ensure that family members cannot benefit from the reductions.
"No reductions should be made and everyone should know that such crimes will be punished and that no one can escape," Sweden's ambassador to Turkey, Anne Dismorr, said in an interview with the weekly Nokta magazine. "In our view the main cause behind the honour killings is the fact that honour is regarded as grounds for reduced sentences."
'Everyone should know that such crimes will be punished'
Turkey has embarked on a major overhaul of its penal code and is expected to rectify the loophole, but the draft code is still weeks away from being endorsed. Some politicians on Thursday called on the government to immediately bring the issue to parliament.
Lawyer Senal Saruhan, a woman's rights advocate, fears, however, that the draft may not be enough stop the killings. She insists that family members who incite or encourage the killings should be punished alongside the perpetrators.
"Unless we bring severe punishments we will never stop these killings," she said.
Guldal Aksit, the minister in charge of women's issues, said legal arrangements alone would not stop the killings.
"These are not problems that we can solve on paper by changing laws. We need to educate society," she said.
Women's groups believe that a number of suicides among young women in the south-east are in fact murders perpetrated by family members who believe they are saving the family's honour. Often the youngest member of the family is forced to carry out the killings in the belief that a youth would get a less stringent punishment.
Newspapers said Halitogullari was abducted in Istanbul on her way back from a trip to the supermarket and raped over six days. She was rescued by police and returned to her family.
The murder came to light this week but it was not clear when it took place.
In a rare confession, Mehmet Hatipogullari told police that he and other relatives allegedly took the girl to an aunt's home where he strangled her, ignoring her pleas and her cries, Sabah said.
"I decided to kill her because our honour was dirtied," Sabah quoted the father as saying. "I didn't listen to her pleas, I wrapped the wire around her neck and pulled at it until she died."
He said he buried her body beneath a chicken coop, which upset his other children, and later buried her in a forest.
Sabah said Halitogullari also planned to kill his daughter's rapist.
On Wednesday, authorities charged two brothers with murder after they shot their sister in the head in her hospital bed, as she was recovering from an earlier attack by them. The 22-year-old woman was shot for having a child out of wedlock.
Last year, a pregnant woman who was reportedly stoned to death by her family after having an affair was buried in a pauper's grave after her family refused to bury her. - Sapa-AP
http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=...5B236&set_id=1
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But, kill him with my hands the hands of a woman after several men from some prison get their sexual relief alleveiated by/from him.
Originally Posted by Elistariel
Southern Africa
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